SandScript 2022

Your fingers sit on top
of black and white piano keys
like how the still white chrysanthemum wilts
under the fading light of a November sunset.
Out of Tune
Alex Bacani
To Be Forgotten by One's Own Mother
Lisa Periale Martin
You start with a smooth legato.
My mind becomes hazy with feverish harmonies.
Sixteenth and eighteenth notes card through my hair,
undoing weary knots like you’ve done before.
Whole notes cup my face and fill my eyes
with silvery mercury that falls down my face
and leaves a haunting warning in its wake.
The song marches into a thunderous crescendo.
My brain scatters as a sharp staccato rhythm
punctures my eyes over and over and over again.
The silvery mercury turning into a toxic arsenic
that makes my cheeks burn with a sickly scarlet red.
It burns.
It burns.
It’s burning the space beside me,
burning my beating organ chained to its cage,
and threatens to leave only ashes dark as the veil of a widow.
Then you play the dreaded decrescendo,
and the notes dwindle away.
Their sudden absence leaving me nothing
but the diminished warmth in my palms
and the augmented emptiness
on top of the worn piano seat.
The fading song draws out
desperate begging from my tongue
that seems to last for hours, days, weeks, months.
But it doesn’t last,
because the sun sets.
Flowers wilt, wither, and die,
leaving only their lifeless petals to be buried under the damp dirt.
Your dead fingers closed the dusty piano long ago,
and sealed themselves away along with it.
Once again, I am reminded that
December arrives, and I am left
With a piano out of tune.
42
where do memories exist—
just a synapse tickling a speck
of grey matter?
my mother remembers
her sister, Ida, when I show
her a photo—but not Ida’s
hilarious husband Fred
by her side
is a bit fuzzy on my brother
Andrew, her oldest,
until I remind her
but no idea who Bonnie, his wife is
then I say her name with Andrew’s
and she says, “yes, Andrew and Bonnie,”
as if they have been one in her mind
joining Bill and I for an anniversary breakfast
at the Arizona Inn, a place she and dad
have stayed at numerous times
where we celebrated their 50th
enjoyed countless meals
in their elegant dining room
she has no memory of any of this
doesn’t remember living in so many
places, their homes there,
her friends and coworkers
I’ll be gone from her memory banks soon
43
do we hold the memories for her
the ones we share
the ones we are privy to
when she dies, and she’s free
of that crippled brain
will those memories, awarenesses
recognition of dear ones
come rushing back
on the other side of the veil
will it take time
like recovering from
a traumatic brain injury
or will it all be there
along with other incarnations,
larger identities and forms
past lives uploaded
with all your photos and videos
contacts and apps
and yes, it’s all
coming back to me now