Sharp hardness gives way and it’s all cardboard

All bubble-wrapped and nestled in last week’s newspaper

I see myself dancing in the kitchen and I watch quietly over my own shoulder

The song starts to sound like the gentle hum of the refrigerator

It’s got this muted loudness to it

Days like these, memories are closer to the present

That thin layer between now and then just barely holds solid

It’s spider silk

It’s too small to see but too strong to break through

I’m all tangled up

I see the old house

The chicken coop

The tall zinnias we grew in the garden beds

I see the portable CD player I left in the rain

My cinderblock fairy houses

Veca the dog

I bring up the ladybug-shaped projector that put stars on my ceiling

And my mom asks how I can remember all that stuff

I think I’m stuck on the wrong side of things

I think my head's in that room on the bottom bunk

Wrapping blankets around my bed frame to protect myself from lightning storms

I think I’m still lifting up the heavy rocks while May the chicken pecks bugs out from under them with her beak

Those memories hold true in whatever now is