Threads, gossamer, elastic, looped,
stitch together fragments of memory
into whole cloth.
They pull memory taut.
Cotton memories,
soft, faded images of
Lisa with the long elegant legs
and straight blond hair
doing calculus in her head,
Soft-voiced, precise in her grammar,
We’d walk and talk about boys, flying, The Little Prince.
She celebrated birthdays backwards
bestowing little gifts on each of us.
Pure Lisa style.
Seersucker memories,
rumpled, cozy.
Swaths of candy pink rosy-ing toddler cheeks
Warm with laughter
Stretched into song and squeals
Preschool circle-time.
We’d celebrate valentines sideways,
drawing names to make bag lunches to order.
Lisa style.
Silken memories, hand-dyed
saturated with nature’s palette
that sings summer ease.
“Where go the Boats?” illustrated
With lazy blues, hazy yellows, breathing greens.
A child sits in a tree above a curve of river
I become that child
Climbing the willow tree above our creek
To dream, imagination afloat.
I celebrate summer inward
Pure Lisa style. Where goes the time?
Prompt: Write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.
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