Memories of whispers that I’d wished were screams
Make me pull my duvet cover
Right over my head
As if this will make them seem like dreams.

Turquoise painted lips pout behind a window in a café -
I think they are directed at a boy in dungarees
Who sits alone,
As if assured of comfort somewhere else.

Fingers tap nervously on teacup-imprinted desks,
Gudang guram cigarettes sit like battered twigs in stolen ashtrays
From bars this child no longer visits
As if to deny his pillage.

Amnesiac elephants meander and stumble down cobbled streets,
As if confused by their role, their significance.
Their tears shatter me.
I feel convicted, as if someone has just sentenced my soul.

The wish to forget
Is forever entwined
With the beauty of remembrance:
Visits to bars,
Elephants who cry
And someone asleep in a bed.