Above, the sky began to blur,
polished black glass 
and diamonds.

              I choose 
to remember you as beloved,

submerged in the recollection of 
our days, numbered and flattened 
into something two dimensional,
mnemonic rows and columns of numbers,
products, quotients, scents and textures 
assembled by rote and cemented 
in repetition.

It turns, then, to memories remaining 
of you, back lit by sun and stars and 
sad waning cries of agitated
engine sounds 

              from under the hood
of your old gray car.

I swore I would not let this faith
fade away,
like colored memories 
always pale, I said,
and fade to gray.

But the expansive sounds of 
moments ago, maybe ages,
were the black glass
of what you called 
fate, vomited from 

                   the womb of the earth 
in an empty glass case, a vacant glass stare. 

Our promises never to change,
etched into college-ruled filler paper,
dissolved in the autumn rain.
Like colored pictures 
always pale, I said, 
and fade to gray.



Timothy A. Clark
1997