Litmus

There is something unspeakably wonderful about you,
as if utterance would shatter
the crystalline essence I seek to bottle
from time. Perhaps it is better to remember
that I've forgotten, though I once knew.

~

They are the golden ones, those impressions
jotted down in rhyme or rhythm or meter
on parchment, the better to mis-remember,
gleaming as black iron ink

pulls empty white space into weight & gravity
greater than celestial bodies, capturing
the thoughts that revolve around the mind
nearer, then further, then near yet again...

while the paper curls & yellows,
lending color to remebrance
pickled, distilled. The details
congregate, intermix --

dissovle away, softly; like dreams,
leaving over their sentiment,
even as daylight bleaches
the remnants from conscious.