Cistern

Cistern

"I try to remember but not to think." --Jesse Jackson, on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Grief is the color of knotted silk.
In the motel, I gnawed celery down
to strands of floss. Blood stained the walls,
and the carpet turned to agate.
There is no loosening of thoughts.
Interior accumulation,
memory-cistern, if only I could
hold you high, like a lamp. How you would
sparkle, cave-bright, reflection upon
reflection. But memory tightens
like knotted silk. And it is dark,
minnowing its way to the dusky
target of the heart.

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