Intermediaries

With time, the quiet spinning
of questions begets other questions.

Is there anyone left to answer them?
And so you leave a plate of food

offerings: sections of wild orange,
bean threads in edible parchment;

meat or fish threaded away 
from bone. All these tell of how

sometimes, mid-dream, you're 
convinced you've forgotten 

your own name—Then you look 
into the hallway mirror and the gaze

that meets your own is unswerving.
Whatever you may have lost,  

the ghosts of your kin always come
back to whisper what you need.