The Persistence of Memory II, by Charlie Brice

The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali (Spain). 1931.

The Persistence of Memory II
 
Our son was abandoned by the one
he loved the most, my dream
of his life with his wife warped now
as memory herself. I have nightmares:
 
In one he dangles from a thin thread
then is suspended in midair. I’m sure
he will fall to his death, but he opens
his parka and glides to a safe landing.
 
In another dream I’m collecting brains
in my mother-in-law’s apartment
on 85th and 3rd. I remove the skulls
of my victims. I pound nail after nail
 
to form a baseball sized cluster
in one skull, create a knob to pull
off the top of his head. I want
to eat the brains I’ve collected
 
but know it’s wrong. I awake with terror
coursing through my body like death row current.
It takes days to understand that I’m looking
for a way to comprehend what’s happened.
 
The problem with memory is that
she persists. Within her embrace
I am a hollow tree covered with ants,
a body alone in the desert life.

Charlie Brice

Charlie Brice: "I am a retired psychoanalyst living in Pittsburgh. My full length poetry collection, Flashcuts Out of Chaos, is published by WordTech Editions (2016) and my second collection, Mnemosyne's Hand (WordTech Editions), will appear in 2018. My poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, Hawaii Review, The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, The Dunes Review, SLAB, Fifth Wednesday Journal,  Plainsong, and elsewhere."