I want you to feel better:

the malleability of memory making grief so perplexing,

an utterly strange pause—

how is mourning possible when memory is contrived from

past plus desire?

I am missing being sure,

or what it felt like to weep and know exactly why.

Exactly where?

Maybe memory has its own body, its own spell.

You watch it closely:

She is tall but she is loving,

I comb my hair until it breaks;

your freckles increase with summer.

An echo goes on indefinitely, I tell you.

Because there are so many ways to wait,

and even more ways to listen.

Perhaps, memory is what we can’t reach.