Portrait of the architect as a young girl

Who does your sadness belong to?
You wrote it down on a piece of paper
You left where anyone could find
And I am anyone. That was last year
You said, crumpling the paper into shapes
Pre-ordained in the wood that once grew
In a forest we’d never have walked through.
It was December when you wrote and January
When I found it and you looked at me
For a long second like the time an oyster
Laps a nascent pearl in nacre. I was too late
Or you were never writing to me at all,
You were a historian or a dramaturge;
You traced a mark in the sand, expecting
It to be washed away. I imagine you did
A cartwheel after you put the page down.
A hand-stand, walking across the room
On your tender palms, your bare soles
Facing no little sky.