Whiff

by Rafi Kam

I saw my own name, dancing
like a dervish one morning.
This isn’t an everyday thing
I thought – watching the wind whip
a word into a low-altitude.

It’s even stranger when that word
is the peg on which you hang
your old muffler The Self :
We Were Nurst Upon
The Self-Same
— name.

I’m not one for superstition but
it doesn’t take an old wife
to recognize an omen especially one
spelled out on the paper skiff
around my feet.

I am floating on dangerous winds –

Somewhere there is a yellow pennant
with my name on it skidding across
green seas; just beyond me now.
After one last breath
I walk away from Symbol.
Ultimately, refusing the chase.