You Feel It Just Below the Ribs

by Jeffrey Cranor

How many times can you filter a memory before it’s really just a fiction? How can you tell how many times your memories have been filtered?

I slept while the world was destroyed; I lie awake now that it’s rebuilt.

Well, we are all the descendants of societies we cannot understand.

I am haunted as I write this. Surrounded by people I spent the best part of my life trying to forget. Would it have been easier if I’d kept them with me? A little bit of pain every day instead of the flood all at once now—now, when I need focus more than I need regret?

IT ALL FELT SO NATURAL. THE WAY WE SLOTTED INTO EACH OTHER’S lives.

She laughed. “Did you want me to lay out all my qualities the day we met? No, my love, I’m unfurling myself like a peony. Something new to discover every day, for the rest of time.” “I did always love peonies,” I said.

“They’re just little empty-headed wanderings,” she said. “Dreams of nothing.”

“Ah, well. My reality is color and flow.