Memory Dump by Isobel Cunningham

MEMORY DUMP                                         

What is this love affair with

an old memory?

What hold does it have over you?

Your thoughts, emotions, longings

haunted by this bristling, thorny remembrance.

You grasp it eagerly, clutch it, hug it to the smooth tender skin

of your inner arm, the curve of your neck,

your shoulder where he kissed and softly rubbed his moustache.

Those memories, open bleeding scabs.

Every waking morning you draw it close to you,

more faithful and attentive than ever he was.

Why do you welcome it with such ardor?

Learn to be a memory-whore.

Kick your dusty fidelity

to the litter-strewn alleyway.

Shovel up the spiney ball, your blood

still dripping from its points and razor-sharp edges

fanning back from the prickles

that quiver at your daily call.

Search around in dusty photo albums

to replace this with joy, surprises, beauty.

All that was wounded, bloodied, crushed by

the heavy mace of memory, morning star of torture.

Find other images!

There is your mother, laughing and looking

with love and gratitude into your face.

And here, a fir-covered mountain that you climbed

long ago with chance-met companions.

The sea, white caps mirroring the frill

of your wind-swept skirt as you stand on an ancient pier.

A beloved child on his first day of school

a door opening to a rich feast of experiences.

Call these up. Breathe life into them.

Embrace them with the ardor and excitement of a new lover.

Caress them softly, whisper, coax them to stay,

to visit you in dreams, to greet you with the

first glimmer of sun or the soft dusk of evening.

Heal yourself. Wallow in the beauty of those memories

Or tickle your humor with a snap of your father

hand-feeding a bird – a glow of satisfaction

on his face.

The image of a dog, smiling, his head on your knee while

the cat in the background sneers her distain.

Rub softly into your wounds the balm of icons of family weddings,

baptisms, graduations.

Your own graduation – a woman forged by

determination, persistence.

There you are, striding across the stage

to grasp that degree, shake triumphantly the hand of some dean or proctor.

Graduate from grief then,

Stride on to joy

Dump that memory and throw a black pebble after it

a pebble of forgetfulness.

Isobel Cunningham was born in Wales but has lived most of her life on the unceded territory of the Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk) Nation in the city of Montreal. Her teaching degree allowed her to take sabbaticals from hospital social work in Greece, Poland and the Québec Arctic. Besides on-line publishers, her stories, poems  and non- fiction have appeared in literary anthologies and the First Person feature of the CBC. Her novella, a ghost story, will be launched in April of 2027.