Featured Poem: Erasure

 

By Megha Sood, member-at-large

 

Thoughts of you are stitching an afternoon for me.

Longing for you has shred it into pieces.

Silence has morphed and shaped itself around me,

embracing me like your strong arms.

 

Constant buzzing of the fly

trapped between the thin wire screen,

shattered mercilessly by this boisterous gale

that has left this room in despair.

 

How much of you has been erased from my memory already?

Who can possibly measure that?

Time itself becomes indecipherable for me

and I’m losing you by the minute.

 

A pale-yellow stock of photos thinning

with every passing minute,

saved as the triggers in my checkered box.

My doctors want me to visit them as a memory exercise.

 

A bluebird trills its morning song next to my window,

a tune that I fondly remember and hum along.

I see yourself in me—

standing in front of the mirror,

 

like a fogged memory,

waiting for pale warm hands of yours

to come and dust off the checkered box, again.

 

8 comments

  1. Andrea Walker, Pensacola branch says:

    Your poem expresses the sadness and frustration of memory loss very well. Whether we’re facing it ourselves or watching it in someone else, the feeling of helplessness. is overwhelming.

  2. Claire Massey says:

    Indeed, who can measure the loss when memory fades, when the triggers don’t work anymore? This poet addresses the lonely embrace of silence.

    Claire Massey
    NLAPW Poetry Editor

  3. Lori Zavada says:

    This is such a heart-wrenching poem. Memory loss is such a sad experience for all involved – so challenging for so many. Poetry is a great balm to sooth the soul.

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