They dig, this year,
from the past,
like hungry red-stained fingers
sifting rocks from potatoes,
their memory is starving, also.

Their memory is starving
like their fingers in red soil,
sifting rocks from potatoes.

My memory starves for you
like the Irish
from potatoes in that famine
both our grandmother's cried
about over second-servings
of corned-beef, cabbage, guilt.
The second weekend was yours,
spent in an attic with records
of suffering blues and uptown
beats that allowed enough space
between lines for our lives'
musical decrescendos.

Come one, come all.

In this month, alone,
I've been dug up like
rocks from potatoes,
and thrown to the side
more times than my
starving memory of you
could count, if given
pause to think at the pace
we speed backwards
without words between us,
I imagine what you'd write
if I responded to your inquiry.

No,
I'd leave your grandmother's attic,
the record player, the records
of blues and uptown beats not quite,
in sync with how we saw love,
alone. To the past, I'd lift red
wine in fingers, stained purple with
holding the stem too long, in anticipation.

We're too far gone for our memories
to eat.

07/11/2006

Posted on 07/11/2006
Copyright © 2024 Angela Cotterman