Memorize a box of pictures
Polaroids, ill exposed
Dated haircuts and specks of sunlight
Captured in tender observation.
Remember there, in the line of a cheek,
The bend of a wrist
And the tenderness returns
And in fondness, half-forgetting
What a tangle that you made
In contradiction
Between intention, and what became.
You talk a while
Of teacups on the counter
And dinner, a performance made
Before the ease began to fade
And holding hands as you ran
Breathless, not quite in step
And picked your way on the stones
With the sea seething by your feet.
You bent to catch her wayward hat
And when you turned, only found
The howl of wind, an empty sound
Empty ground, hollow scenery
Like a stair that you missed
Or a light extinguished,
You’d lost your sense of direction.
Something key has been mislaid
The ticking of the clock has rearranged
As the settled dust is now disturbed
Dim confusion and pockets filled
With scraps and string –
But remember when, on a hill
Green and languorous in the shade
On a picnic, in conversation,
Mid-thought and reclining
Time suspended in the sun
Whimsical and mild
Dragged its feet beside the wood
Where the boy and his bear
Still play in games half-forgotten.
Packed the day in the hamper
Wrapped in checked cotton and yellowing,
Tucked away behind broken sleds
And galoshes
Turn your face towards the brisk salt air,
Kinder then, to let the memory
fade, disused, and decay--
But you stand your ground, in the sand
With faint hope indissoluble
And strain with muffled ears to hear
The footsteps that once had echoed yours
As the mist rolls in with the day.
**
Now Edited, for coherancy and to remove an olbique reference to something that shouldn't have been included.
*
Because I am, to some not inconsiderable degree, a lunatic, this is inspired mostly by spending way too much time looking at the snap-shot-esque pictures on the Cam (Shada) on Brighton Beach (Leisure Hive) and most of all in Paris (City of Death) on tragical history tour and otp_probably. While listening to lille (Lisa Hannigan) on repeat. Salted heavily with fanon interpretation of course.
strange how a fictional past you never had can render you just as helpless with chest-crushing nostaliga as recalling real events in you life. for me anyway. but of course my real life is rather dull and easily overshadowed.
