Remembering Bob

Remembering Bob

Remembering names requires a picture:

prayer hands for Grace,

a crowned royal playing card for Jack.

Some say we are our memories,

a product of our past,

even in dreams where thoughts refract,

bend into motorcycle helmeted figures,

grated gravel roads, and Autumn,

a dry October leaving fields hard and cracked,

their dust whitening black heels,

powdering hands and face with a rising wind.

In a mirror we see our pasts.

Chicken pox at thirteen.

A fall off a church wall at eight.

“You keep me grounded,” he said.

“When we talk, I’m seventeen again,

drinking sparkling grape juice out of plastic cups

in a hotel lobby at 2 a.m.”

What you don’t say, I remember.

Leaving the circle.

With you.