by Mark Gordon
In the memory garden too many statues,
some cracked, some spotted
with pigeon droppings,
some too big to carry home
even if you wanted to steal them.
I remember a real garden, a bandstand
in the middle of it, where,
on occasion, a small orchestra played
to light up summer evenings.
We, lovers, stood around, leaning
on each other’s shoulders, held up
by the thumping of the bass. We
had no idea what roads
we would travel, what gardens we
would visit, what plot of land
we would be buried in. But summer
nights followed us, the memory
of a perfume that she and the trees
wore. In the memory garden
we learned to collect tiny details,
the cracked tooth on the peanut vendor,
the greenish hue on the statue
of Bobby Burns, the pumping legs
of our cousin who sped past everything
without a glance, bicycle clips on his pants.