Perhaps memory…

Perhaps memory is a string of beads

we add to day by day.

My brother has that kind of memory.

Thorough, sequential, detailed.

***

Perhaps memory is an old home movie

Clicking through a projector,

the color shifted

toward gold.

 ***

Perhaps memory is a stone

lying on the riverbed so long

all the rough edges

have worn away.

***

Perhaps memory is a story.

No longer attached to the event

it has taken on a life of its own

in the retelling.

 ***

Perhaps memory is the account

of one eye witness.

My sister and I diverge

on common events.

Only one can be right.

***

Perhaps memory is a locked box

each of us has

to keep our good times safe and unassailable.

A place where what has been

cannot unbe.

***

Perhaps memory chooses

what it holds on to.

I retain the sunny days,

fail to archive the ones that

keep me in bed,

defeated.

 ***

Perhaps memory can get lost

like the purpose of the stray key

on a key ring.

What used to roar to life

when that key was turned?

What did it once open?

****

Perhaps memory—mine is of this kind

is a collection of snapshots.

My sister, brother and I sit

on the edge of my mother’s skirt

spread in a circle around her on the grass.

A fish flashes up out of the water,

and Ray’s rod bends double.

Josie splashes in the canal

her water wings bright orange.

Craig counts softly, one, two, three, four,

and we come in on the

downbeat.

***

Perhaps memory is our assurance that

whatever today brings,

 we exist, we are loved and

we have done things

that matter.