When a memory calls

by Skylar Ray
(newton ks, U.S.)

With sometimes a whisper or sometimes a song
there is always a smile when your memories call.
Most come and most go, but the first of them stays,
while the last one is hidden behind a broken wall.

Between birth and death: a crawl behind the drapes
to hide then seek, and toss a tiny ball,
or maybe it was just that old photograph,
long ago misplaced and not a memory at all.

Then you became the one who made a start in life,
and soon you were just one step from a wife.
You might have had a daughter, or maybe a son,
a chance you deserved before your life was done.

The times come to mind when you were a boy,
and still so young with those untouched ways.
All our games you won until you joined your friends
and grew tall with them during brighter days.

Then you became the one who made a start in life,
and just when you were one step from a wife,
where you might have had a daughter, or maybe a son,
a chance you deserved before your life was done,

a voice explained in a call before dawn
all your dreams disappeared at twenty-one years.
Despite unrelenting sorrow of a parent's grief,
ten orbits of the sun, in shadows and tears;

you, who should have been a husband to a wife
and a father to a son, healed my heart after all,
with sometimes a whisper or sometimes a song
and always that smile when your memories call.