fragments(memories)

it all started with the wind,
lost in a dark house, in the night,
rattling through the dendrites, disturbing
the shadows of forgotten memories.

some are eatable and nutritious,
my mother breaks freshly baked bread and dips it in warm milk,
it was nauseating back then,
but the memory smells like my mother’s hands.
I breathe it in and absorb it all to the last molecule.

the other memories are poisonous:
still blue, still pulsating, still quivering
like freshly beheaded snakes.
those I wouldn’t touch, I would let them die in agony
or live unknown and beheaded.

there are past warnings, rotten apples,
partially devoured by the worms of time,
partially alive, broken into fragments
like an ancient scroll.
I must reconstruct its visibility
word by word, letter by letter.
I must remember my father's voice,
warning me not to jump from the white, freshly painted fence.
but I did anyway.
when the uneven teeth of the ashy bone chewed through my skin,
I collapsed, stricken by the ugliness, rather than pain.

now, pinned down by the elements, I don’t attempt jumps,
I slide my body slowly and gently to the ground,
just to regret my decisions later… .

©3/26/2012 by Nina K Orlovskaya