Memory

Oh Memory, What are you?
Just the glimpse of the corner of a wall
Or a bush or a pattern in the air
Bringing on a rush of longing for a feeling
Long swept aside or so I thought
On a terraced wave of suppressed anxiety.

Can you not intrude on my present, please?
When all I want is not to cringe and berate myself and lie awake
When I am engaged in relating to the here and now
Completely uninterested in the then and there
And the who and how.

Oh Memory, If I could so much as resist a whiff
Of the better times
And the warmer people
And the unalloyed love
And the greater passion
Of times past that should remain there
And not in the now.