Tonight's Poet Corner: Prosopamnesia

Prosopamesia

by Belinda Roddie

There are days and days and days and days
when I remember faces, but not names,
and then I remember names, but their faces
are scraped away like wet sand
from the lonely sole of a shoe.

Like the time I remembered, "That's
my first love from high school," only
not recalling the monosyllabic wonder
she uttered while pausing for breath
in between my lips: but then Rose
comes to mine, and all I see is red.
Rich, stereotypical red.

All while I gaze upon a scratched mirror
and come to believe that I have grown
new scars, like cat's whiskers, to help
me sense my way to beauty's door. All while
I sip on cosmic liqueur because stars are too
hot and too distant to gain youth from. They

are old, I remind myself, and are ready to die,
if not already dead. And blind as I am,
to both lovers and loathers alike in my life,
I still cannot detect their final smiles.