Memory

By Saachi Khandeparkar

Splattered across the

Recesses

Of the thinking shell

I catch it festering like

Symbiotic mould-

Memory.

A vintage movie rolling

Without permission or intermission

Whispering your secrets

To the most tantalized listener,

You.

But where does it exist, if not the present?

Where is the line between happen and happened

Pain, stroking its talons

Down my consciousness;

Poppy yellow Jubilee, blushing wild;

It's not real, is it? It's remembered.

What flows in the river between

Memory and Imagination?

But the Hobbes in me is a cynic.

After all, I'm a masterpiece-

Brushtroke upon brushtroke upon inkblot upon

Brushtroke.

And all that I have to give

Lives in an anthology

That matters, real or not.

I've named it, too.

Memory.