memory box




louise carter



Do you remember? you asked me, more than once.
I referred you to the box beneath my bed;
the memories that lost their relevance for each day
in which we weren't speaking. But you're here again
to breathe colour back into the sun flares, to rehydrate
the pressed flowers. Fresh paint upon the canvass,
hot breath inside my instrument.

Here long enough to stain the mattress, to shake
me up like a snow dome filled with glitter. Love
in all its powerlessness. Your fingernails dragging
trenches in my skin as if it were wallpaper:
It's there, I know it's there; I saw its eyes.
I want you to find it, pinch with thumb and forefinger;
watch me crumple as you kill it.

Yes, I remember. I've sucked the bones
clean. I've retched bile against all reason;
followed you downstream to a hidden weir,
swam naked to the bottom. Where memory
cuts out because no light, where dreams are cooked.
Your mouth a source of oxygen as, tumbling,
I ache and ache and ache to live.

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