Or maybe memories are like
Weights attached to the feet,
And the further you swim
From the shore,
The smaller the weights get,
Till they are the size of
Sand grains stuck to your toes,
But heavier than all the mountains
That rise from the sea,
And heavier than all of the sky
That meets the sea,
And you’re always swimming
Just below the surface,
And always swimming away,

It’s like this with memory,
While I remember the way her dress
Fell on her,
I rememember more the creases on
Her waist as the evening wore on,
The creases on her waist
Where I let a finger slide
In the valley between two folds,

Time is the distance between
Two people sleeping
In different beds, in different worlds,
Time is a longing that ends as an ache,
Time is winter,
The coldness creeping up
From the toes to the nose,
And the touch that could warm it
Is just a memory,
A smile condensed into the corner
of an upturned lip,
An eyelash on a finger tip,
Time is a wish that’s long forgotten,

But memory, it’s like this,
It’s the whole universe of her person
Packed into the molecules of her smell,
All of her presence in the fragrance
Of her neck, the crease of her elbows,
The back of her knees, the musky,
Bitter sweet scent of burnt chocolate,
All of her instance in one whiff,

It’s like this with memory,
It’s the heavy lidded tiredness
That overtakes you,
Plunging you deeper than all the dreams,
To the furthest you can be from wakefulness,
To the state just short of death,
And when you return,
You are lighter than all the balloons
In the world, and lighter than all
The secrets sold before guilt kicks in,

And if memory is like a black hole,
Like a worm hole,
Like a dense field of gravity,
That pulls you closer into its folds,
Can you arrive [PHOOP] to the other side
Where nothing has changed?
Maybe you simply remain, in a memory
Looping forever,
Your whole life a finite spool of thread,
Knotting up, and reigning tight,
The time that keeps slipping away.

But,
The city is a guy,
And we are buds,
We meet at the pub
Have a few drinks,
Discuss girls,
Occasionally thump our chests
Like chimpanzees,
And our deepest conversations
Are never deeper than a thimble full
Of jack Daniels,

And it gets lonely sometimes,
And it feels as shallow
As slumbering puddles in back alleys,
And if this city was a woman
I really wouldn’t ditch her
For another,
Even if we had Tesco dinners every night,
Sometimes we just have to anchor somewhere,
Instead of drifting about like paper boats,
And that’s the problem-
The inability to see the vanishing point,
Where all perspectives converge,

So really,
If the city was a woman,
I’d marry her in one car honking,
Ealing Broadway stopping,
Picaddily pub hopping,
Mindless metaphor making moment.

But right now, us guys,
We just punch each on the shoulders.

Chapters bookmarked and never closed,
Pages dog-eared and forgotten,
Plots begging to be read,
Yellowing pages left in
Airport lounges,

We have unfinished business-
They’ll snarl,
Jabbing an exclamation marked pitch fork at me,

And then Ulysses abandoned on page 254,
And Moby Dick on 23,
Will drag me to the classroom
Where I once made paper planes out of
Old storybooks,
And they’ll strap me to a chair
Under the scowling portraits of
Authors on a day pass from heaven,
An unpopular book on quantum physics
That lay unopened on my shelf
Will bristle with the anger of a spinster scorned
And read page after page
Of brain bashing equations,
Backwards,

And Sigmund Freud will analyze me
And ask embarrassing questions about my mother,
And Miss Maple will uncover ugly truths
About my indiscretions with Miss February
On page 15 of Playboy, issue 12,
And weeping she’ll ask me- Why her? Why not me?
But before I can answer,
All the 24 volumes of Encyclopaedia Britanica
Will drop on my head, one after the other,

It’s not fair- I’ll cry – Who reads the whole goddamn encyclopaedia?

This is Hell – an upset poem will reply
And recite its verses over and over,

So,
To make amends,
I’ll go to the library
And read every book from A to Z,
Classics, physics, Oprah’s Club picks,
Even the oversized manual
On 350 tire treds,

Or,
Maybe I’ll just watch TV instead.

Now let’s give it some love,
A touch, a caress, a kiss,
Go on, let’s give it a cigarette,
It pulls and it sighs and goes hazy
Like neon flickers,
Or reflections on wet streets,

Let’s give it a shadow,
Long for longing,
Short for tomorrow,
Let’s make it last forever,

But then when it’s morning,
Show it the door,
It pouts and it cries-
It loves you, it loves you,
But it lies,
Because
Longing only loves who isn’t there.

So belt it and whip it
And say you despise it,
Take away your gifts with a whisper,
Saying it softly, but firmly, saying-
Fuck off, naked and formless.

And then when it’s night,
Invite it back again
For seduce me booze
And pillow talk,
And if it sulks,
Forget about it,
There’s always loneliness
Around the corner,
And it’s up for a good time.