Flinch

Did it ever exist,
That life, that thing that flew
At your head, that shadow?

You stare at an old day
You’ve remembered often.
You could corroborate

Some of it. Root around
The town where it happened.
The adults now all gone,

Talk to others also
Children then. They’d recall
Similar memories,

But not the same as yours.
Yours exist as thought’s own
Beings, but did that world,

That you, that thing that flew
At you so suddenly
You flinched—did it exist?