“Proust had a bad memory,
the only kind worth having
Beckett argues: there’s no remembrance
and so no revelation,”
–Denise Levertov
Like stray cats cautiously
patrolling the periphery,
memory haunts the present.
Even small transgressions
resonate into horror,
for there is no possibility
to repress, a form
of forgetting
inherent with silence,
abused children,
and broken lovers.
The details blur and slip
from one to another,
unfolding their lines randomly
within a new context,
until you realize
what it is
you have done,
and that it cannot
be undone.
(June 5, 2018)