That Sweet Tiny Tickle

Reflecting on the past
is surely more inspecting
what has jockeyed
for position in the present:

recollections you’ve decided
have to last. A secret blitz
of all your stewing pleasant
and unpleasant bits,

tides of which continually
bubble, turn and mix inside
your psyche’s scalding
cauldron – as strange and hot

as any witch’s pot of brew –
will always deftly conjure up
what you will always swear
was true: precisely just

the fraction of the memory
of that sweet tiny tickle
of a lover’s body hair
that your opinion of yourself

can bear. You are
the gullibility and glory
of the fullness of the story
that you need to hear

and tell and know. And so:
you think again – back
when – and bleed and fear
and swell and grow.

.