Memories

I see them as a system: counterweights
Hidden in a wooden window frame
Long painted shut, where a ghostly face
Grins and grimaces. It’s not the same

Face for you, but you will recognize
The basic features: the squashed, greasy nose
Print left on the pane, the two crossed eyes,
The pink tip of a tongue, thrust so close

Against the surface, you can almost taste
The cold—that lingering ammonia
Zing. It never quite evaporates—
That tangy flavor. Blue. Millennia

From now, I bet, whatever lights glide past,
Memories taste sharp like that. Clean glass.