Memory
modeled after Julie Suk's "Remembering the Plot"
This week drifts into the last.
The elusive memories of
conversations held, movies seen.
Same with books. You read,
read, but remember only
that someone gave up,
finally, after decades of silence,
and knitted a bedspread five miles long.
But the nose has a better memory,
whole lives waft back, the moments
that linger in limbo
pulled out by a random scent.
And you stand in the street
watching the crowd walk past
leaving in its wake
the aroma of a man's cologne
that even now revives
the way his lips pressed
deep into yours,
the lights in his eyes
suddenly sparkling with warmth.
Rae Douglass
10-31-2000