I remember lasooing
the moon-
In a special way.
Like a story told so
many times the
details become
ingrained in you
like campfire smoke
to hair.
I feel the rough wood
of the fence beneath
my tenderly young
fingers-
grasping tight though
your hand never
left my back.
The moon, and the man
in it smiling down
on us, glistened
in the lake as
we swung and swung
our rope. And then
he was ours-
Pulling with all
our collective might,
Father and daughters
united in triumph
of what no one
thought they could do,
we tugged him in.
I remember this like I do
my name (Emily Elizabeth)
and my birthday (May 6, 1991)
and the way your
hands always smelled
coming in from the cold
(like home).
And it's this-
This memory so a
part of me- that
started it all.
With one hand on
my back and the
other pulling the
rope with our
tiny ones-
We caught the
Moon. I have
always known that-
With your hands
as guidance-
I can do anything
because I did that.

Weren't they heavy,
The feet that carried your
Young body across foreign
Desert soil that
Did not want you there?

Underneath all that weight -
The weight of all that
You were forced to carry,
Yours and theirs,
I imagine your footprints
Dragging in the sand,
Long since swept away
By the wind of
Many years.

But then I think,
They must still be heavy -
For it's been said
That what you swallow
Never goes away.
And though you
Deserted the desert,
It can never
Desert you.

See I will remember you.
My brain, categorizing as it is
In its Obsessive Compulsive ways
Remembers everything-
Filed away to one day illicit
An emotion I know not of now.
I will remember your fingers skillfully tracing
My outline, your breath
Against mine as we lay
On the bed you made
Up with new sheets.
I will remember the new
Sheets and your excitement
For them as our sweat moistened
Their crisp newness on that
Balmy early summer evening.
I will forever remember purple:
The color of those sheets;
The color of anything favorite
And happy and nice and You.
But that was then and
Years from now, as I walk
Down the street in a town
That's not this one, my
Fingers interlocked in the
Hand of a man who is not you,
I will see a girl pass
Me by in a lovely purple dress
And I will remember. I will
Remember the night
When that girl was me
And that dress was mine
And that color was yours.
But, there's the rub, the
Sandy rub after a long, hot, sweaty
Perfect day at the beach,
The salt to the sweet of
This all- my brain will store
This, everything, store it away
And I will remember. I will
Remember the leaves that crept
Down your shoulder, permanently
Inked into your freckled skin.
I will remember the look and
The words and the touch.
But will you? Will you remember
The way I smell of
Sunflower and stale smoke
Coming in from the rain, blue
Eyes peaking up from
Rain specked spectacles
Gleaming in the dim light of
Your livingroom?
Because I will, I can't help it.