The taste remains like a cut on my tongue,
And I begin remembering them.
One said the taste of pennies
Would hide the smell of alcohol.
A different taste every week,
But all I can remember
Is money in my mouth.

No '¦ I do recall a beach
Where surf rolled over conversation
And churned the sand behind us
Till it was smooth again.
Her eyes at least I remember
Like blue ink in strange porcelain bowls
Deep enough to supply
Several hundred lines,
But from me, she'll have nine.

There was a meal opposite of someone,
The click of forks on teeth,
The taste of iron and red meat.
Salt I can remember from biology
Is important in the chemistry of feeling:
Salt in a cut, salt on an eyelash or on a steak.
I was saying goodbye, and had a full stomach
When I left her there, a dissolving memory
Like a pillar of salt falling backward.

Who was that person? I wonder,
Thinking about myself.
I barely remember him.

I do remember a lighter,
Lit a long while.
The flame flowed over
A glowing arch of metal,
Sparking little stars of something like life.
I felt them when I pressed
A new vivid crescent into my ankle.
Three times would leave
Three livid scars overlapping
Like a link and a half of chain.

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