There are things,
memories - memories
are things -

that are to me as to a wrinkled man
the juice from a peach he stole as a child
drips from his chin in the
juice of a peach he bought today.

Things, or memories -
take your pick - either
chimera in its own way

returns me to inarguable lilacs
and undoing of clutch, brass parade
rippling in salted air -

returns me to the moment before
fire caught, lets me look
without being seen, without burn,

lets me understand its passing,
dwell, celebrate and soundlessly mourn,
and describe the memory which describes the thing.

the thing, a long silk dress,
hands over her body the first time
a memory of hands disappearing
into silk and the quiet curve of breasts
so slow stopped by her response
remembering hands stopping
hands continuing down
belly i imagined touched and remembered
and imagine again as a place
to rest my head belly rise and fall
down where the fabric falls straight down from her hip
where suddenly she is no more
my touch so soft i lose her
i remember then pressing through into her thigh
sudden needy frightened fingers
later soothed by cool sweat on sheets:
the taste in the taste,
the thing,

Absence. Nothing round, nothing sweet.
I want my memories to be pure:
spring is life, winter sleep, for example.
Each moment, each touch.

Today's absence,
my thoughts and memories of her,
these my things in scale before all possible deeper lonelinesses
will become round and sweet someday,

as her body disappearing under silk
and my fingers first time searching
are memories of the sweet and stolen
in any new day's commerce.