I remember some things

because I have carried them

for so long they have forgotten

where they began.

Others return without asking—

the shape of a room,

a hand resting near mine,

the particular quiet

before someone leaves.

Memory does not always arrive whole.

Sometimes it gives me only

a color,

a sound,

the outline of something missing.

And still,

I call this remembering.

Not because everything remains,

but because something in me

still knows where to look.