Memory forms at a point,
you said. Where four lines meet,
two lines aren’t mine. I said,
memory is a flat plane that knows
a mirror’s shadow. You knew the
line of sight, low moon of thumb-
nail to high window, before you
placed me naked behind the glass.
If a face appears in a dream,
I said, it blocks another face.
Morning like a line protruding
into the sky of the present, unlike
the singing of a finger against
the wine glass rim. Your hand
was warm. You cannot govern,
I said, when you feel the archive.
And this displacement suggests
another, triangulating the depths
of something, another jury queued
to enter our conclusive room.
In the mirror was not myself
but a movement along the brink
of what I was. Your cheek was
gone. I said, you forgot what
point it was I called paradise.
You said, you have to learn
to take better care of yourself.