1. Take a walnut glazed
with the honey of their name.
Crush it with a mortar and pestle.

2. Gather the dried lavender of their voice,
and scent your hands with it.

3. Hold the gifted knife firmly,
and stab yourself where
memory resides in you.
Beware!
It is a tricky, slithery, too fast thing.
Be quick and sure.

4. Watch for the echoes of their scent
in the caverns within you, bioluminescent wonders.
Drown them in silence.

5. The swans will clamor
wings flapping, beaks snapping, asking
to deliver messages.
Resist.

6. Let the pythons wrap themselves
around you, constricting your lungs
till you learn again to breathe
underwater.

7. Soak in the shower
of an unseasonal rain,
or the silver ache of a snowstorm.

8. Drink. Rinse. Repeat.