b a r b a r a  f l e t c h e r: other poems


Leaves

Her memories are layers and layers of leaves;
earthen papers inscribed with sounds and scents
of the past, pressed together with soil
and moss and forest-floor creatures
that crawl between the moist skins of reminiscence,
chewing on the edges of faces and events
digesting the moments of her life
into a composted collective.

It's the recollections closest to the surface
that she remembers best:
the crisp and crackling memories
that smell slightly of the past
but crunch with colourful familiarity,
chafe her fingers like truth;
these memories she rakes into a pile
and runs through them, rolls in them laughing
like a child unable to care what lies beneath.