Marigold

I still see you, you know?

Mirages of you haunt every bus stop.

I find you in a 7/11 cashier,

in the way her red lipstick smudges in the crease of her lips.

I pick at twigs and flor de Maga,

triggering glimpses of a now overgrown garden,

of a basket on your hip.

Mom laughs like you,

and I watch, a grief stricken smile etched on my face.

I collect those moments like a crow,

I put those tiny treasures on the window

where the sun can warm them up for me,

because memory is cold thing.

It silences the chatter in your mother’s living room—

it dulls chipped beacon gray walls and the smell of chicken guts.

Not even memory can freeze the pain of stepping on that lifted nail,

or the sound of pouring rain on a tin roof,

definitely not the smell of running in the rain to tackle the clothes on the line.

It all fades.

And yet, I keep finding you in places that never had the pleasure of meeting you,

a history in motion.

I retrace your steps like a detective,

dancing in your shoes until I feel primal tug of a past I wasn’t part of.

I buy marigolds to give you life,

they decorate the picture hall,

and I dance barefoot on the broken glass because it mattered.

It mattered enough to bleed. To remember.

Time cannot erase you even if it tries.

All of those nights you wished you could disappear,

bet you didn’t think I’d find you.