Lemon Juice and Salt

It changes by the day, my memory of you.

Most days it is soft and cool like wingtips

Of the Canadian geese that flew

Over the funeral procession when our lips

First met in that dusty old graveyard

Full of mystique and dead bodies and dreams.

.

Ah, things aren't quite ever what they seem.

No matter how I toss the dice or turn the key,

You are nothing now but hot, venting steam

Leaving my memories and leaving me

To trip and fall into an echo of the past

That comforts the cuts like lemon juice and salt.

.

Maybe I've come to like the sting.

This pain is the truth in the memory

And I'll wear it like a ring

For the world to see it belongs to me.

You are an autumnal tornado with swirling vortices

Of moldy air gone brown with the soggy leaves.

.

The smell of you is a compulsion.

I can't stop myself from putting my face to the autumn air

And inhaling until my lungs ache from the emulsion

Of you and me and this emergency flare

Burning through the canopy of my madness,

Streaking into the black sky, calling for home.