The Persistence of a Memory of Apricot Shampoo
The Persistence of a Memory of Apricot Shampoo
by Michael R. Burch
For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight of auburn hair
that fell across her face, the apricot
clean scent of her shampoo, the way she glowed
so palely in the moonlight, angel-wan.
The memory of her gathers like a flood
and bears me to that night, that only night,
when she and I were one, and if I could...
I’d reach to her this time and, smiling, brush
the hair out of her eyes, and hold intact
each feature, each impression. Love is such
a threadbare sort of magic, it is gone
before we recognize it. I would crush
my lips to hers to hold their memory,
if not more tightly, less elusively.
Published by The Raintown Review, The Eclectic Muse, Kritya, Gostinaya (in a Russian translation by Yelena Dubrovin), Boston Poetry Magazine, Freshet, Jewish Letter (Russia), Poetry Life & Times, Sonnetto Poesia, Trinacria, The New Formalist, Pennsylvania Review
Keywords/Tags: Sonnet, memory, persistence, memories, remember, remembrance, reminiscences, perseverance, love, name, features, face, hair, eyes, lips, crush, desire, longing, lust, impression, recognize, recognition, remember, remembered, forgot, forgotten, angel, wan, night, flood, apricot shampoo
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