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Memories Recalling Themselves as Young Thoughts
by Erik JensenI hadn’t known you were coming and I didn’t think to look twice at you when you shuffled in.
It wasn’t you, I thought. So, my apologies, I guess. But in my defense -
Your eyes were windswept like Giza and the koi peeking out from under your dress
Had grown, heavy on a diet of eating your days.
Wasn’t he a guppy when I last saw him?
This is not how it was, but it goes like this –
Things happen when the seconds incrementally compound together, obscuring
those small changes that don’t make the cut for phone calls or birthday cards.
Our lives seem like hastily drawn cartoons with jokes hidden in individual frames we can’t catch.
I understand this better than I do calculus or quantum particles or other explanations of what is happening in front me. But, I don’t like any of these.
I tried to find you in there with the bearings I had: your hair against autumn leaves,
Your whispers in my ear against the echoing rain, your face in black and white in an academic journal
Read by approximately six ancient language professors and me.
I always accepted these on their face, just like veteran’s stories propped up by
Their constant affirmations of each other, though your voice was always softer each time I thought about it now that I reflect on you and “her.”
I won’t ask about it now – chances are I’ll forget if I try.
The waitress will walk by again, and I’ll ask for a refill and struggle to place her
With a model doppelganger I saw in pinup girl magazine and wonder about her extracurricular activities.
Then I’ll have you as I like and fill our five minutes with fantasizes of our waitress in pearls and silk stockings.
10/23/2011 Author's Note: From wedding 2.
Posted on 10/23/2011
Copyright © 2024 Erik Jensen
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