Birthday at the Galleria

When I find you again, it’s different—
it’s fall, and the wind throws each

swollen limb against the frail theater
walls. As they shudder, they cast

a tentative backdrop on the petals unfurling
through the scene. The movie swallows me

while I’m still searching inside
its perpetual spring, the hand-painted light

of a hallowed sky washing out the popcorn
taste, the taste of stale chocolate cake frosting.

Before me, somebody’s grandfather waits
to die in the screen’s pixelated field, balancing

his life in stacked white cubes. They’re meant
to represent his life’s impact. When he asks: Who

are you? It’s your face I think of—grainy
and out of focus. The shrill weave of your voice

flees through the entranced crowd
of faces—single grass blades in a sea of grass.

The fated winds of applause scatter my own
shuddering memories into a thousand lost blades. Somewhere

I am 22. I am 56. I am 81, memories shouting
from wherever my life’s white cubes find pleasure

in dragging me. Of course, it’s not me, just as I am
not you inside this theater of desire. In the darkness

of gratitude, I swallow thick tears that long for the tape
to rewind. They are long gone, fallen between the seats

by the time I return to natural light, I’m just one
year older, and the wind won’t stop asking—

Who are you now? Who are you now? Who are you?