i.
Memories like fish out of water.
Do you remember?
What I've run out of words to describe.
Time has stolen everything, but not the
Lightning.
Not my heart stuttering, trembling,
Turning blue-lipped. No, that stays.
ii.
Memories like old dreams, like forgotten tongues.
Do you remember?
When I was eleven. I kissed your rubbery cheek
And played with your daughter's cat.
Do you remember?
When I was sixteen and too scared to kiss you,
Afraid I'd cut myself on your cheekbones.
Do you remember?
The day the world fell on its back. I was nineteen.
We spoke in hushed tones, my mother, my aunt,
And your daughter's daughter.
Your son died last October, she tells us. He was fifty-five.
At night you're restless. You see an ear, a chin.
A hesitant potbelly. A rawboned head.
But the sun makes you forget.
(What are you all talking about? you ask
When the conversation lulls.
Pastries, your daughter's daughter replies without missing a beat.
We're talking about pastries.)
iii.
Memories that are neither mine nor yours.
Do you remember?
The November of 1937 and
The day the sky, caving, turned red.
Do you remember?
The rubble that breathes.
Do you remember?
The houses that cough smoke.
(Do you remember?
Your mother's bones, feeble and undecided,
Peeking out of her skin.
Your sister's eyes, blacker than black, as she is struck
In the ear by a soldier's panting gun.)
iv.
Memories like insects.
Do you remember?
Her eyes, her eyes, her eyes.
(You don't.
But that lightning is endless. Stubborn. It stays.)
