it is my curse to never forget

it is my curse to never forget
even if I wanted to
but now I carry the weight of your beauty
everywhere I go
and I’d like to be able to take it off sometimes
and hang it on the back of the bathroom door
like a robe of yellow silk

your specter lurks in the aroma of peeling wood,
in hair and skin warm from the sun,
in the transparency of moths, in wind-bloated screen doors,
in avocadoes being fed to babies.
your splendor is persistent and bothersome,
and I relish this peculiar pain with a furtive joy.
in quiet times your loveliness deafens me, and it is unignorable
as a cat scratching at a closed door

or the movements of a man
that reverberate within you
long after your body settles into stillness
like the invisible currents that wash over you after a day at the beach
even as you lay in bed
and the bedsheets themselves seem to undulate,
and you smile, safe in your stationary bliss
while the salty billow of sleep tows you into her hallucinatory womb

it is my curse to never forget
even if I wanted to
so if at times I seem distant, sick or haunted,
afflicted or tearful,
please try to remember that it’s all your fault.