Marker Memory
It started with her coffee—taken black
Until one morning when she realized
That half a pair of half-remembered eyes
Had been that shade exactly, staring back.
Soon even puddles chilled her blood, for they
Held sparks within their darkness, silt of stars
Washed down from skies light-years away from ours.
Months passed, yet her misgivings never strayed
From liquid night & what it might portend:
Was this a nightmare, or some accident
Her consciousness rejected? In the end,
She almost cheered that cyan light They sent
To lift her from her bed into a place
Where onyx orbs distinguished each gray face.
Missing Time
His watch ran backwards. Not a lot, but still
He flinched each time he saw those hands revolve
As though some fragment of his life dissolved
Before his eyes. It almost made him ill
To contemplate that hour—sometimes more—
Rewound to nothing. Nothing he recalled,
Except a nagging sense of neurons stalled
Between whatever life he'd had before,
& now. For years he struggled with that gap,
Until he drove a midnight country lane,
& felt the wrench of . . . something . . . overhead.
His instruments spun backwards, then stopped dead
As one glance through his windshield made it plain
A star chart might work better than a map.