sun with empty air

In the early darkness of Greek winter afternoons, in rooms cold at the windows, I raise my hands to my face and smell Alex in my palms.

I long for memory to be spirit, but fear it is only skin. I fear that knowledge becomes instinct only to disappear with the body. For it is my body that remembers them, and though I have tried to erase Alex from my senses, tried to will my parents and Bella from my sleep, this will amounts to nothing, for my body betrays me in a second. I have lived many years without them. Yet it's the same winter afternoon that draws Bella close, so close I can feel her powerful hand on my own, feel her gentle fingers on my back, so close I can smell Mrs. Alperstein's lotion, so close I feel my father's hand and Athos's hand on my head and my mother's hands pulling down my jacket to straighten me out, so close I can feel Alex's arms reaching around me from behind, and upon me her maddeningly open eyes even as she disappears into sensation, and suddenly I'm afraid, and turn around in empty rooms.

~Anne Michaels

these days, these hours

even the re-awakened smell of eucalyptus and soup and spring refuse to soothe

me