subtext

He forgets himself during the day.

His once lucid dreams fragment

like glaciers calving into the sea,

leaving him diminished and lost

adrift within memory’s currents,

which form upon the shadows of smoke

curling between these crumbled walls.

He forgets himself and what he was.

The connective flow from there

to the seemingly happenstance now

snaps like the tailor’s final snip

as the new suit waits to drape

and transform the parade king

into the stunned peasants’ laughter.

He forgets himself and dreams again

vaguely along miscued lines:

what was said, and what was written;

what he knew she would hear, and hoped

would be enough; but feared instead

would be too much if played

into its final denouement.

He forgets himself and where he was:

the soft bourgeois setting couched

in light conversation and wine,

where a jejune innocence flourishes

beneath a jaded pantaloon’s eye; where

what is said and done and remembered

to be said and done are never quite the same.