Triptych On Memory
Originally published in Issue 32 of La Piccioletta Barca
I. Early Illuminations
light flashes through glass
moves shapes across her face
pine trees glide past my window
mesmerize as a zoetrope spins
(what did i dream of then?)
crawling into her lap
my face against her cool pricking thigh
her warm hand on my back
peering through the shadow of the porch screen
no gleaming car approaches
bright patch ablaze on the grass
& my young father sits
sunlit from behind the couch
plucking the banjo & laughing
they are children, too
tender & fresh as string beans
delighted with me in that moment
before the clothes are strewn across the carpet
before the crack & crash of fractured light
words rise in my throat
& they’re turning their warmth toward me
the sense i’ve always been here
of course i have
just as the finches feel
flitting between branches
II. Break
I have never known a shared loss
to draw us closer. Each year
the bleached bones of floating trees
soften in the unrelenting river rush.
The splintered twisted dismembered
limbs will not grow back together
in time. What happens when we die?
children ask & stack their blocks.
How well the colored light hides
the atom’s yawning emptiness!
How well the stars’ backsplash hides
the stretching expanse of our grief!
III. Slow Decline
here
books do not gather dust
pages do not warp nor turn yellowbrown
no crates are stacked no boxes
packed nothing to wrap or repair &
skeleton keys click snugly in their locks
the same bonewhite barnacles still
cling to the underbellies
of the wet greenblack rocks
guarding the tidal pool
where I peer & reach
bending light
for tiny bronzebrown crabs & snails receding like words
until foam floods the rippling
sand &
swallows me again
turning without anchor
bubbles float like dust motes through shafts of light
through the murky green
a face arrives
searching
hands on my hair softly
as in a dream
pulling cobwebs away gently
her warmth envelopes
& slips to shadow
—Sarah Yost
ⓒ Sarah Yost 2021