fountain pens and salted sardines

 

A sky full of stars
and galloping unicorns,
reflections on mirrors
and tapping shiny black shoes,
melting mirrors
and lather dripping over venusian dimples,
burnt cinnamon sticks
and the wreckage of a yellow hatchback,
the awed silence in an auditorium
and the wriggle of a centipede,
chewing gum stuck under a leather seat
and the chorus of popping corn,
broken wings
and an amethyst embedded in a ring,
the peaty smell of an abandoned warehouse
and temple bells,
love bites
and a heron listening keenly
to the sounds of water in a paddy field,
welding sparks
and a popsicle-smeared face
of a four-year old.

The few surviving memories 
of an Alzheimer’s foggy mind,
which always come in pairs
and fade into the sunset,
or phrases put together
for no rhyme or reason,
but for the sheer delight
of the sound of poetry.