Recollections

by Thomas F. Wylie

“I don’t know if memory is a form of incarnation. In any case, it must be a stimulus for the spirit that by means of recollection manages to revive. Though perhaps memory consists only in holding on to an instant and immediately returning movement to the moment. Is memory barely a scar? Is it the past I myself don’t recognize? Though if I don’t know it, how can I remember it? Is memory a mere simulation of recalling what we have already forgotten, or what’s worse, have never lived?”
— Josué, in Destiny and Desire by Carlos Fuentes

Sex clothes shoes
cookie crumbs and
pocket lint

tools pens and pencils
paper clips and notebooks
memories and
memorabilia;
held boxed
stored ignored
year after year
decade after decade.

Cars rocks candy
cups glasses and buttons
images discarded
retrieved
holding-on
letting-go.

Gatherer of nuts and berries
squirreled away.

Toys bottle caps baby teeth
batteries and investments;
mentally
physically
tucked away.

“That smells bad! Where in the world did that come from”?

“Oh, my father’s long-haul log book required of truckers in the 1950’s.”

Children known
children unknown
boots and bolts
tees and tires
seeds scattered;
treed and
treeless.

Fantasies
dreams and dreaming
endings refusing to end
rusted memories
eating away at time;
hanging around.

“Suck it up and get it done.”

“Yeah, you always say that.”

Anger resentment fear
objects and feelings
boxed and unboxed
staying holding molding
past
present
future.