Pantry

A man's brain grows a pantry
around a corner, outside the light,
that creaks in weathered sighs and lies
draped in weightless drips of dust lace.
It's stocked with memories separated
into cans, jars--labels gone to ghostliness.
Only a few still shout "Do Not Touch,"
beneath a cartoon skull and crossbones.
One blows up on occasion from chemicals,
age or climate, and all the stuff inside flows
in sweet and savory syrup across all he knows,
to swiftly disrupt time and mood. Strange
anaesthetic feel in every shot of the forgotten.
Other times, the man reaches in and opens
a can of Dad sneaking up behind Mom as she stirs
the big pot of spaghetti with a wooden spoon,
swings her right around and leads her in a dance.
He sings, “Shoofly pie, and apple pan dowdy...”
Now, Mom’s gone, Dad stumbles on her name,
and remembering has become an act of faith,
uncertain one can recall the shape of smoke
from a campfire that burned 50 years ago.