Drinking at the Memory Holes,

poem by Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva 

for Bartolomeu Santos's show at Galeria FOCO, april 2021

 

Drinking at the Memory Holes

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Imagine you take the same stroll everyday.

Leave the house for the recollection lake,
Turn into the muddy woods of alternative paths,

Cross the rivers and hills of imagined epitaphs,

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And return, invigorated but pensive.
Your work awaits, and a moment ago
In a flash, in a tremor, you knew where to go

Now you miss a scent, you miss a touch,

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You also miss being missed much
Perhaps, like these cuts on your arm,
Doubt fell on your world like a nostalgic charm
The flower is dead, why are its thorns getting sharper?

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The cuts bleed a little, and so you
Reach for a filter. On the nerves of the surface

Memories are floating back up, when you try

To catch them, they turn into dirt

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You sift through that blur, but only
Scratches are left. Adding more marks,
You are trying to shape them. Futile! So you
throw excavated echoes back onto square-shaped tiles

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They remind you of someone from a while ago,
A childhood souvenir or was it more recent?
But all your mind is giving you is the silent treatment

They have real names in the world, you know

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Your memories, your hurts. And like
newborns who instinctively search for their mother’s breast

You are looking for those to relieve your distress
You grasp for that air, the new and the old

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The bubbles appear but your head gets cold

Back at the pond, something has changed,
A filmy layer covers your familiar terrains,

Yet a faint light is now drawing some stitches

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Isn’t part of creating getting rid of things?
You miss knowing that truth, or that you pulled through

Hand on your heart you promise yourself
That every morning you will start anew

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Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva

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