The Visit

Now I’ve created this city again from its latency among my maps of memory.

Roads here lead to old places inside, comfortable furrows like the ones etched on grey-matter surfaces in photos of brains.

I ride these roads of memory, sweet grooves that long ago finally led me away, flung to the east, then to the west, spun in a centrifuge of time;

led away from the child first impressioned by the carnival of lights down on Easton near the Furniture Store; flickering phantoms on the TV screen in our old, dark living room; Daddy’s beloved mansmell and shiny, bald head.

I open memory’s drawer to find the storms that raged here once have blown themselves out, old volcanoes quiet now, grown over with green.

Past and present make love in a wholly aesthetic universe with the added feature of a living pulse. I live a loop-around, like a metaphysical Cessna pilot flying curlicues in the time-space continuum.

Raising my cup of this heady blend, looking out the picture-window of time, I drink to such elegant simplicity.