<!DOCTYPE html> <!-- Template for compiled 'Autocento' documents --> <html> <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"> <!-- more meta tags here --> <title>Riptide of memory | Autocento of the breakfast table</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./css/common.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./css/verse.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./css/stark.css"> <!--[if lt IE 9]> <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"> </script> <![endif]--> <script src="./js/lozenge.js"> </script> <!-- <script src="js/external.js"> </script> --> </head> <body> <div id="wrapper"> <header> <!-- title --> <h1 class="title">Riptide of memory</h1> </header> <section class="thing verse"> <p>Inside of my memory, the poem is another memory.<br />The air up here is thin, but the wind blows harder<br />than anywhere else I know. It threatens to rip<br />my body away, like <a href="angeltoabraham.html">an angel of death</a>, to the stars.</p> <p>In Arizona, I thought I would forget the rain,<br />forget its sound on a roof like a hard wind, forget<br />its smell like a far away ocean. Luckily for me<br />it rains here. Luckily, because I forget too easily.</p> <p>In a dream, <a href="father.html">my father is caught by a riptide</a> off-shore.<br />He’s pulled far out, far enough that the shoreline’s<br />a line in his <a href="ouroboros_memory.html">memory</a> on the horizon. I can see him<br />swimming, hand over hand, pulling his small weight</p> <p>back to land. I see him as <a href="shipwright.html">another shipwreck</a> victim,<br />coughing sand and seawater, beard woven with seaweed.<br />I see him laying there a long time. I see all this<br />as he tells me the story, years later, the riptide</p> <p>only a <a href="100-lines.html">ghost</a> in his memory, I only a child falling<br />asleep. My mother’s making mayonnaise rolls<br />in the kitchen, a recipe I’ll send for years later,<br />in Arizona, in the monsoon season, when my thirst</p> <p>pulls me back home, my memory’s lonesome twinkle<br />like <a href="finding-the-lion.html">stars above the mountains</a>. I’ll send for it<br />and try to make them, but in the thin air they’ll<br />crumble into dust like desert air, like a memory.</p> </section> <nav> <a class="prevlink" href="music-433.html"> 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"> I think it’s you (but it’s not) </a> <a href="#" id="lozenge" title="Random page"> ◊ </a> <a class="nextlink" href="about-the-author.html"> About the author </a> <a class="nextlink" href="sixteenth-chapel.html"> The Sixteenth Chapel </a> </nav> </div> </body> </html>