Un-Remembered

I memorize the lines sculpted
by your face into my fingers, but
I can’t memorize words of poems.
If my literary memory loss tastes
like freedom to my speech today,
why can’t I tell you I love you?

If I only memorize love in songs,
I’m pleased by the lack of memory
that forces me to eternally invent.
I must re-touch each point of view,
but un-remember each one, or fail
to allow imagination to draft it all.

To quote Chekhov or Shakespeare
sublimes me like a new-lover kiss,
a finger-kiss touch on Dad’s casket,
or a kiss-off for an unloved poet, yet
the words of other writers lose me.
So I need deep memories of touch
and agile notes of melody to know
how your kiss tastes across a room.
I need your history from A to Z
to touch your future from Z to A.

I can’t memorize words of poems.
I’m pleased by a lack of memory.
Laugh, if you’ve heard this before.

(Art by Anne Abrams)