memory

clay and muscles have memory,
so my fingers and mug will stay curled
in the last shape that you left them in.
you can walk away and never return,
but my wrists will still hear your name.
my hands will still fold into the space where
your hands used to be.
and the little clay bowl will remember
how you held it so gently,
how your thumb pressed and smoothed
away its ridges,
how you pinched together its sides until
it was strained but not ripped apart.
 
i might forget you.
in a year,
i might forget those gauzy
days in hotel rooms
and underwater motels,
when our toes were intertwined
and the ceiling even smiled.
i might forget the times
that you wrote me letters
and spelled your own name wrong,
or when you bought me flowers,
just because.
but even then,
with all of our memories forgotten
in my mind,
my fingers will remember how to
brush against your cheek,
and the mug sitting on my shelf
will remember how it felt
to be held by you.