Out curls

Serpentine smoke

Into a Byzantine midnight

.

I can’t read these heiroglyphs

I carved for myself on the walls

Of my memory

My fingers pass along the grooves in the stone

But unread and unknown,

I keep a secret from myself

.

My memory holds a door with no handle,

A box with no locks,

A moldy book with wilting pages

And an hourglass with one grain of sand inside

For telling the present moment

.

Since my memory can’t photograph

It paints with watercolor

On a canvas of sand. I can make out

Serpentine smoke curling into a Byzantine lung

.

I can’t read these Arabic numerals.

These envelopes have dried my sandy tongue.

I can’t focus

At this oxygen bar, too many Cheshire cats smiling

At this hookah lounge

At the bottom of the dark, green wine bottle

Of my memory

.

My memory curls out

Like serpentine smoke

Into a Byzantine midnight