03
PALIMPSEST
⸻
in the singular drawing of you i kept
burrowed deep at the bottom of my drawer,
i didn't nail down your expression,
nor capture the mild glint of your new glasses.
under my hands,
conceive in my perception,
you're a faceless figure
faded, softened,
smudged at the edge,
represented only by broad strokes,
ghost lines,
maddening spirals,
crisscrossing, curving, shading,
grasping into one another.
imprinting on the rough parchment:
a delicate image,
a brittle movement,
a hasty moment,
a shapeless tangled mesh
of you crossing the bridge, walking my bike,
of slick, black hair tousled in the wind
of white uniforms billowing
of dead, brown leaves crunched under your steps.
i'd like to think
my last summer with you was preserved, whole
in my memory,
for there are vivid bits and pieces,
words and phrases,
colours and hues.
forever blacklighted into the back of my brain.
strange, how frivolous details, such as
the city's newly built bridge,
or last hour of heat steaming from our backs,
or our skin, doused in motorcycle fumes,
or the ghastly sun, glowing from the corner of our eyes,
or pecan leaves sprouting above our heads
like ominous predators' fangs, awaiting,
are all seemingly extraordinary
and striking, than when i first encoded them.
yet, like smeared graphite hatching and
inky thumbprints on the drawing page,
my last summer with you,
my memory of you,
reduced to
a quivering sliver of life, blurred on film,
a slow-motioned blink of an eye,
a belated turn of the head.
a sketch, unfinished.