thirteen ways of looking at your memory of me

1.
I would melt the clocks if
I were you, I would save the candle
for darker days if I were

2.
must you always bring up the roses?
memories of a winter afternoon
and all those roses rotting in

3.
a glass jar and everything is soluble
is cold is velveteen is soft like the folds of a curtain

4.
call me irrational, but there is no
more music in the ring of a telephone
than there is more waiting spiraling in a staircase

5.
a crow walks into my dream
wearing a coat of peacock's feathers
the crow looks familiar, looks dangerous

6.
do you see how easy it is to collect me
without the ivory, without the hunt,
it's all shades of off-white anyway.

thirteen ways of looking at your memory of me

7.
and what if I stole all your memories
of me drowned in a trunk
at the bottom of some incarnadine sea

8.
bubbles over pearls, any day,
oil spill over bubbles over pearls
it's the iridescence we're all after

9.
and tea with drops of lemon
on summer evenings, fingers
that smell of lemon on summer
evenings, lemons that smell of summer

10.
give me back my book marks,
give me back the lines I learnt
by heart, give me back the reasons
for learning them

11.
myth vs. fact
myth: garden lizards are not scared of feathers
fact: there is no garden here anymore

12.
how far would you travel to see me?
remember it's a long way from 1 to 0,
and the world as a half-circle in between

13.
don't remember things that did not happen
don't forget things that did not happen
don't make happen things you forgot to remember
I always knew you were of three minds