The funny thing is

The funny thing is, you turn 36, and you still

remember 16 the way you’ve always remembered it:

Linda’s hands snaking over her head, her long

black hairs delicately looping the shampoo

bottles, her house smelling of ginger, holding her

hand. She hasn’t changed any, except, maybe

to become a little more dear, a little worn

through, moth-eaten, stained with finger

prints from my earnest remembering. I

smell stinging hair dye and see Jade and her almond

eyes that never winced or cried. Fresh

grass, charred ashes in the grill, cold firs,

the gummy stuff between the slabs of concrete -

the thing is, as I understand it now, these things

that form within me form me – Linda, ginger, hair

dye staining the kitchen sink; as the years

rise and sink, yanking me around, I get taken

in by the illusion that I’m changing, that nothing’s

the same, that the past is hanging by the loose

thread of a thinning, grey string. What a laugh.

I’m never rinsed clean, even as the cells flatten

and the skin fattens and the heart tightens and

the mind fights for every spark its got. Like any

spiral shell or thick knot, I keep going but really

am just growing around the shape of myself.

No such thing as a mind and a body, it’s all one

piece, and the memories laced them together – nose

and smell, eye and sight, the lips with the kiss

that was never uncovered from the mix but hovered

beneath the surface of my skin, wishing; the eclipse

of the moon by her placid, empty face, edging out

of the picture I had made; you can find them in

and on me, if you touch me the right way, if you

look soft enough, if you listen to my breathing

when I sleep and hear the purring of the car

that took us out across the park – you can taste

the ginger, you can feel the scars I touched along

her arm, hold the space with me that is also

the world as I know it – the geography

of mirrors and fingers and you, now

looking and seeing how you’re turning

me round another bend and taking

me in for another spin of the story. Where

does the reading end and writing begin?

And what will we make of each other,

with all these sincere intentions to fashion

out of  this salvaged material – the waste, the want -

a present and everlasting love?

Advertisement