Cross Town, 3 January 2018

While it was perfectly true no errand
Could be run to turn back time, to the extent
That time could be sensed at all it had to be
Drawn as an inference from an incomplete
Difference, and the incompleteness
Of each difference created what we sensed
As time and space, the latter a secondary
Shadow of the former. So when, for instance,
A shambles of an often-broken man
Shambled into the county services building
On an errand to begin a passport renewal,
The incomplete difference of that experience
From an earlier experience of entering
Officially the same offices to procure a copy
Of documents necessary to a divorce
More than a decade earlier, itself incompletely
Different from an experience of entering
Those offices to obtain a marriage license
For that eventual divorce a half-decade
Before that, conjured up a sense in the brain
That time had been turned back, that it had,
In fact, doubled over on itself repeatedly within,
Thus creating, a place for documents, of unions,
Separations, and renewals, which really was
Every place there ever was, although not all
The others were official or in offices.
There was no time at all, you see, except
That turning back time made it appear
So that we could say with that shambling man
Yes, I remember this place—it was long ago
But it was here, and I was here, and now
I’m changed but it’s still here. Not this year.