Remember When ...
It looks like rush hour
as the line of cars inches south,
Santa Barbara foothills on the left,
the blue Pacific on the right.
It feels, as I creep toward the gathering
of writers, like swimming through
a limitless vat of memory soup, stocked
with too many onions.
It smells like each green street marker
is a packet of madeleines ripped open,
spraying poignant and sticky crumbs
of times past into the air.
It sounds like the crackle of ghosts
of the lost and the dead crying out
in hoarse, unused voices,
"Remember when we ...
Remember when ...
Remember me ... "
It tastes like an under-ripened fruit
promising bright, yellow sweetness
But delivering only the bitter, green bite
of memory repeating, repeating
"Remember when ... "
