Part 17

I don’t remember how my name sounded
in your mouth, how your mouth tasted

inside mine, how you looked when you
stopped at the foot of the bed, how you

moved, how we moved, how we crashed,
how the force was felt for days, for miles.

The ripples have been brushed away and
water is once more sky below sky. As if time

is rearranged. As if the past is erased and
what remains is a future frown of recognition,

not by knowing, not by remembering, but
like a cold wind that passes by, skin contracting

from a primal impulse. As if the aftermath has
decoupled from the event, result separated

from reason. As if memory is a discounted
inconvenience. What is the order, the protocol

for forgetting? The smell of damp skin before
the length of a toe, the hesitation of a lowered

gaze before a laugh line, every single laugh
line? Or should we forget all at once including

the way purple sheets wrinkle around a
body, asleep inside a dream inside a dream?