Did you ever suspect anything when you were growing up?

I recall nothing of her features, just that

same scarf each day, pastel blue.  Her child’s scream, though,

that, my first mosaic visit to the vast

land past pain, past specific grief, I relive.

The scream repeated something he alone heard,

as bats hear inhuman frequencies and steer

by them, as a mystic hears spirits and prays,

asking nothing, willfully forfeiting will.