To Forget Never
Susie Morice
I remember …
we held these truths to be self-evident,
matters of fact —
it was like this.
Certainty. Bold and bent with conviction,
declared, trusted that our house was built
with stones of exacting might,
treasured trusses of truth —
“I saw it with my own two eyes!
Counted with my own ten fingers!”
Our house shifted, suddenly sagged,
drafty, cleft in the corners,
window panes smeared
with a heavy impasto
of doubt,
a trompe l’oeil,
a sleight of hand,
rendering a different truth,
countering logic, papered in toxins,
dripping pathogens down the wavering walls.
Now when I remember —
the text in my left hand,
my other on my heart —
the mere act of recollection,
carries a new weight,
a sacred rite,
as if having been there,
as if bearing witness,
as if forgetting
promises the house will crumble.
I write to forget never.