Gatsby

Lives are constructed,
this much we know — 
strange little hollows

we build furtively, as if
no one is watching,
as we vainly stretch

ourselves to fill them.
Every night I look out
at my own blurry history,

a sea of sunsets ago,
and every morning
I put on my glasses

and squint at the work
before me, the same
few rooms, building

what I say is me, 
some hopeful projection
into the old future

above the green waves
of a possibly impassable
ocean of past.