Hay-on-Wye

I shelved my memories of you - warm as old paper, edged in gilt,

overflowing their rows like the books in the shops we wandered:

pages tinted the color of a century, crackling at a touch,

cloth and cardboard handled till the edges crumbled,

filling aisles and stacked on chairs and stairs and floors.

We carried the scent on our sweaters out into the lane,

of stories folded in paper and dust. A dry scent,

but the pages of my memories are soggy now and melting,

illegible, running in rivulets of ink and gilt across the floor,

puddling golden-black. Illegible, leaving only - smeared and sticky -

your handprints shimmering darkly across the walls of my brain.