Shura
by Kate Gale

It wasn’t a face anymore. A broken thing.
Opened wide by time and cavernous washes of memory.
Waves of what might have been.
The memory where my sister’s face
was is empty of light and shadow.
Time rushed in leaving stains only of itself.
All hollows and blank fields where iridescent sunshine
glances off, goes its own way. Search for eyes shining.
Nothing. Huge dark spaces. Lips that move randomly
around parroted word shapes. A face like leaf shards buried.
What used to be alive pieces floating around
just under the surface, you see them give way to decay.
Used to hold water and sunlight, echo sky even.
Now darkness. A face once. Surely a face.