A Memory
written by: Mark Wartenberg
For Lavinia
“Let go when you give it”
They fit
Around the old red brown brick
In a swell of life that doesn’t quit.
Raindrops flick,
Bodies strain.
Later, through pain,
She flits
Into a geometric room of swirling graduates
Trained to escalate the brain
And smother
Consequential tidbits.
Inside the festive frame
Along enlivened axes
They sink to their knees
To break bread or hurl blame
To chart the contours of their climb to the summit of their unborn name.
In plain view, fiercely keen,
He, she step into each other
And make themselves unseen
As a casual football rolls by.
I sigh.
And step into myself
Near a bookish shelf,
By a gray Cambridge sky.
The football dances on
As graduates scatter.
A light pitter-patter,
And everyone’s gone.
Now, flown
on a grid of their own,
They sit
Closer the summit
On a perilous ledge
With a garden and hedge
And enjoy the below, the above.
“Hold on when you get love”
