You can start having strange thoughts in trees.
                    Wolf Erlruch

terra cotta flower pots in grandmother’s bedroom nursery.
then a grilled cheese sandwich carried to me on a plate.

then the sea, every shade of everything other than blue.
although it wasn’t color, it was down deep I remember,

how you roll with the breathing pulse of water over rocks.

then me a salt fish and no memory of me above the waterline.
then an anemone thirsting for touch.

then pie, easy to redraw in single thought.
apples, peaches, both telling the truth.

then snails blooming from the shrub, here
beside the bench where I linger at dawn.

how arms and legs are akin more to roots than limbs.
how faces behave like rain.

memory is only another moment of now itself.
like tides, I go where water says.

or maybe the texture of dusty skin
or that scent native only to you.
 
 
maybe I’ll remember color when
 
 
maybe color will say my name
 
 
 
neil reid
 
 

footnotes:
maybe there’s something more or other waiting here, but for now this is what came through the door.

formally this poem began as a one word prompt: pie.  but I’ve nothing more to say about that.

last, if you know that starting quote, something more may be visible here.

revised 2019.10.09