Phantoms

Does your heart ever throb a bit,

sort of tremble 'gainst your ribs?

Yearnings tug you backwards

 --pulling, pushing, leading, begging--

 taste the past just a second more!

Delicious slivers of memories

flutter and disappear

--evaporate!--

leave your mouth empty,

your fingertips with that
(phantom)
touch

of what was

what had been

what used to be.

It’s not that you want to revisit.

(though sometimes, that wouldn’t be all too bad)

And it’s not that you’re not happy now.

(because really and deeply and honestly you are)

It’s just when a smell or a taste or

--god forbid—a picture!

confronts you and shoves you

much too quick

into the past

and those memories

wash over

and over

your soul.

They:

feel like the warmth of wool-scratch sweaters,

taste like lemon drops mingled with rain-water that dripped between your lips,

sound like laundry tumbling tumbling in the dryer,

and look like the fire slowly going dead.