They belong to me

Others live in my memory, they belong to me

to do with as I will.

They live in all my dreamt creations and in various disguises,

coming out when least expected, claiming innocence at best.

Some are with time forgiven or forgotten, or worse.

 

I remember once, the ponderous surge of a wounded whale,

a gossamer veil of water streaming down its back

like a shroud as it shrugged off the ocean.

There was nothing there to forget.

I remember telling someone, who shrugged and took a drag of their cigarette

as if they couldn't imagine such a delicate portent of death.

They come to mind in the shape of a sullen crow

when I see a still cloud of smog over a desolate town,

hear the whispered sigh of a dying breath.

 

I recall the ragged scuff of knees as we children scuttled doglike,

howling laughter leaping over mossy walls of broken stone

and the lightning strike of knowing stunning me to silence as the laughter tore the air,

I'm me

but what is it like to be you?

And putting myself there, inside that skull,

but seeing nothing except my own imaginings

and feeling them slip away beyond recall.

They come back to me as atoms not quite taken shape

when I see a painted portrait examining me from the wall

with that same question in its eyes.

 

I wonder now if I live in anyone's recalling?

What kind of me have they invented?

Is part of me still kept and brought out to inspect

when I come up in conversation?

Am I growing like a clinging vine in the wintry silence of their lives,

left in a corner by the window with just a trace of sun?

Or am I like dust blown by a howling wind into the eye, on a cloudless summer's day,

causing brief tears, then wiped away.