Cellular Memory

©2014 Louise Gallagher

My cells hold the stems
of memory
buried deep beneath the landscape
of my body moving through time
passing
over
the story of days long ago
where I once believed
my destiny waited
at the door of the chimera
of your love
calling me to enter.

In the delicate strands
of memory’s DNA
stringing its story of time
connected
my veins run
thick
with the blood
of your deceit
casting a pall
on the beat of my heart
pounding
at a glimpse of a place
where once we spent time.

On a winter’s night
when frost hangs suspended
in the frigid air
soaked in ice crystals
swirling in the soft golden hue
of memory backlit
in a streetlight’s glow
I find
memory’s deceit
lying in the distance
of time passed by
and long forgotten.

There is no substance
to the memory of you
no dream worth awakening
no cells worth dividing
there is only this road I travel
far from those places
where the darkness embraced me
and fear stalked me in the night.

There is only
this time right now
where frost tipped branches
dip low
and the magic of the night
sparkles in the incandescent glow
of a streetlamp
lighting the way home
to the heart
where I belong.