<!DOCTYPE html> <!-- AUTOCENTO OF THE BREAKFAST TABLE --> <!-- vim: fdm=indent --> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta name="generator" content="pandoc"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes"> <meta name="author" content="Case Duckworth"> <title>Riptide of memory | Autocento of the breakfast table</title> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="trunk/favico.png" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="trunk/style.css"> <script src="scripts/randomize.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script src="scripts/hylo.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <!--[if lt IE 9]> <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"> </script> <![endif]--> </head> <body id="riptide_memory" class="stark"> <article class="container"> <header> <!-- title --> <h1 class="title">Riptide of memory</h1> <div class="header-extra"> </div> </header> <section class="content verse"> <p><span class="line">Inside of my memory, the poem is another memory.</span><span class="line">The air up here is thin, but the wind blows harder</span><span class="line">than anywhere else I know. It threatens to rip</span><span class="line">my body away, like <a href="angeltoabraham.html">an angel of death</a>, to the stars.</span></p> <p><span class="line">In Arizona, I thought I would forget the rain,</span><span class="line">forget its sound on a roof like a hard wind, forget</span><span class="line">its smell like a far away ocean. Luckily for me</span><span class="line">it rains here. Luckily, because I forget too easily.</span></p> <p><span class="line">In a dream, <a href="father.html">my father is caught by a riptide</a> off-shore.</span><span class="line">He’s pulled far out, far enough that the shoreline’s</span><span class="line">a line in his <a href="ouroboros_memory.html">memory</a> on the horizon. I can see him</span><span class="line">swimming, hand over hand, pulling his small weight</span></p> <p><span class="line">back to land. I see him as <a href="shipwright.html">another shipwreck</a> victim,</span><span class="line">coughing sand and seawater, beard woven with seaweed.</span><span class="line">I see him lying there a long time. I see all this</span><span class="line">as he tells me the story, years later, the riptide</span></p> <p><span class="line">only a <a href="one-hundred-lines.html">ghost</a> in his memory, I only a child falling</span><span class="line">asleep. My mother’s making mayonnaise rolls</span><span class="line">in the kitchen, a recipe I’ll send for years later,</span><span class="line">in Arizona, in the monsoon season, when my thirst</span></p> <p><span class="line">pulls me back home, my memory’s lonesome twinkle</span><span class="line">like <a href="finding-the-lion.html">stars above the mountains</a>. I’ll send for it</span><span class="line">and try to make them, but in the thin air they’ll</span><span class="line">crumble into dust like desert air, like a memory.</span></p> </section> </article> <nav> <div class="anchors"> <a href="backlinks/riptide_memory.html" id="backlinks" title="Links to this page"> φ </a> <a href="index.html" id="coverlink" title="To cover">◊</a> <a href="#" id="randomizelink" title="ERROR">ξ</a> </div> <a class="prevlink" href="music-433.html" title="Previous article in Stark Raving"> Something about all music being performances of <em>4′33″</em> in places where other bands happen to be playing </a> <a class="prevlink" href="i-think-its-you.html" title="Previous article in Stark Raving"> I think it’s you (but it’s not) </a> <a class="nextlink" href="about-the-author.html" title="Next article in Stark Raving"> About the author </a> <a class="nextlink" href="sixteenth-chapel.html" title="Next article in Stark Raving"> The Sixteenth Chapel </a> </nav> </body> </html>