What Remains

February 15, 2007

When I loved you, stars were brand new still.

I forget the feeling now,
but I remember the side of your face,
wrinkled with a smile,
framing the rest of the world,
dark, blue and radiant,
and paling…

I remember only that I loved you:
the car parked on the side of the road,
sloping, looming over the winding night,
the music that I bend in my memory,
and the rain…

It was the first time it rained.
Leaves were thirsty still, and smiling.
The night glowed like only a sick mind could,
and danced ahead of me all the way.

I forget how I loved you.
I remember only the cobblestone,
the light—yellow and trite—
and your schoolbook of French poetry on the steps.

We always left the sex kit under the seat in your car:
a stolen vial of lube, condoms,
and the rest of my youth.

Some nights I can taste it still:
the humidity in the trees,
the guilt in the parking lot,
the fantasies we spun of our hunger,
and a faint smell of bliss.

Above the steak sizzling on a bed of salt,
there—where you taught me about strawberries,
and champagne, and the other weapons of love—
I was vacant and anticipating,
and prone on the piled plastic chairs,
and you were generous with the pain.

That I remember well.
When even the anger has dissipated,
something like regret lingers.

I call it love, or what comes after,
or what remains.

I call it nothing when I am tired,
and the world rushes in,
and I can barely remember the name.

Written by Ashraf O. Posted in My Poetry