For Years Now: A Tanka Sequence

for W. G. Sebald


my hometown
memories hang from the eaves
of a rooming house
they tremble faintly
each time a day passes

loneliness
has her black eyes
through them
I see my past rolling
on the screen of spring nights

in mind space
time moves in my direction
it curls back
when I visit my mother
in daydreams

everyone I meet
speaks with a funny accent...
in dreams
I return to my hometown
an ocean away


Published in Lynx, XXVII:1, February, 2012