(3) Memory (Week Three)

At the film festival a woman hands us pamphlets, waits for me and asks the question. It's always the same where are you from. She already knows the answer--but pocks her cheeks when I speak. Southernisms in my mannerisms, as much me as the wrinkles on my palms. Seated and lights out, you find me like a secret. The first clip of an old man, memories anchored below a sea of mantels and picture frames. His lover stays there too. How long did your mother keep us in those frames, on the walls and tables? She even had to take the family down, we were together there. I lean over to whisper your name to a friend who knows the story. You're now a number in May—so I say tomorrow, call you the twenty-sixth. In this way, I know you'll always find me. Like today in middle hot chocolate and a reflection of this rain. Your quiet gestures--in my hair, on my back, these lines. And it all seems a little silly—less than a year ago you were curry, the sweet scent of frangipani, my sari. It’s true, I made you into a poem, put you into covetous lines and spaces where we best seemed to fit.