I have inhabited many forms
and in none
have I recognised my own face.

I have left names
upon the thresholds of rooms,
like relics
of a language now estranged.

Within,
a figure without contours
continues to elude.

The closer I look,
the further it recedes.

Perhaps there exists
a man of absolute clarity,
a creature without hesitation
or remainder,
moving through the world
without casting a shadow.

I imagine him.

Then I lose him.

What remains is the penumbra
of what I would rather not be,
the slow sedimentation
of a disgust without an object,
a weariness
that asks for no rest.

At times
even absence
seems to possess a form.

A smooth surface,
weightless,
nameless.

But it does not last.

Something endures
at the furthest edge
of matter,

an infinitesimal persistence
that bears no resemblance to hope,

a tremor almost imperceptible

beneath the crust of silence.

Nothing else.

No revelation.

No promise.

Only this body
still occupying
its own margin,

and a night without measure
that cannot quite
contain it.