Scrim

I sit here in a shelter behind the words   

Of what I’m writing, looking out as if   

Through a dim curtain of rain, that keeps me in here.   

The words are like a scrim upon a page,   

Obscuring what might be there beyond the scrim.   

I can dimly see there’s something or someone there.   

But I can’t tell if it’s God, or one of his angels,   

Or the past, or future, or who it is I love,   

My mother or father lost, or my lost sister,   

Or my wife lost when I was too late to get there,   

I only know that there’s something, or somebody, there.   

Tell me your name. How was it that I knew you?