Now and Then

Inasmuch as our faces
bear resemblance, 
now, to what 

I imagine of them 
as they were then, 
they are parallel strands 

of a single shoreline: 
one of wet sand
along the water, hardened, 

pressed into itself 
wave after wave; the other 
as loose sand skewed

by wind, or—slowly—
sieved grain 
by grain through 

open hands, 
as skin catches light
to cast its shadow;

where they join, shifting 
margin, memory’s 
most actual arrangement: 

less two unified forms 
than a single form cleaved, 
concessions of dry land to sea.