Memory, a Small Bird
Susie PatloveMemory is a small bird
……..flying with bones so light
its tiny feathered form blurs
……..and I have only a scene
dimly lit, of a woman’s legs
……..dark-stockinged, wordless
and while everything there
……..is shaped by angular light
her legs are soft, cylindrical
……..sinking into her black shoes
and who am I to believe
……..that such a thing occured
or whatever I saw in 1948
……..had much to do
with what my mother said to
……..the woman in stockings
or if I, the baby, crawling
……..on our kitchen floor, knew
for the first time that words
……..could order the bright emptiness
that what was uttered
……..by one woman to another
described their minds
……..and I could then translate
all shapes and every color
……..into sounds flying, birdlike
between the one who was everything
……..and a stranger, whose legs
would come down through decades
……..an odd vision asserting itself
until it arrives here on this page
……..mysterious, flapping its wings…
