Long night recalled
only in fragments.

Yellow apple skins glimpsed
in a refrigerator drawer.

A voice as clear
as cirrus clouds in sunset.

A remnant lust
fading into regret. 

What needs to be
retold for a different world.

Instructions on
how to be old. 

Sickness and health
interchangeable. 

Hard words: love,
damage, porcelain. 

The same old “used to be” 
shifting: is memory

credible, imagination
no more than a broken cup?

The pattern on the tablecloth.
The tablecloth on the floor

and whose eyes are those
watching from the pantry?

Fatigue in the form
of question marks.

I had better get home
before answering any of this.

Want to lie down
silently and let doubt

slide away like a kid giggling
in a downward mountain stream,

all the way into an icy pool
then coming up for air. 

A yellow apple for breakfast.
Afterward, cleaning up

the broken cup. Afterward,
memory kissing me back

to just after childhood
and the eyes of an early lover.