Memory: A Tonic

You’re wrong, I do remember.
Behind every voice is your voice
disguised as some creature’s hiss or call,
behind every quicksilver shape your shape

disappearing into the bramble—
Is it that we rearrange the facts
to suit the memory, the memory to suit
the purposes of the heart, that organ

ripped out of the body of a snake
but still pumping at the bottom
of a clear shot glass? It’s waiting for you
to take it into your mouth and drink it in,

whole, warm, beating;
it’s waiting for you to swallow
this difficult thing mixed with blood
and liquor like it were nothing.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.