This Is How

This is how we must remember him now. 
Bound by the confines of the one 
cramped room, swatting at the flies 
that rise from the gathered rubbish, 
empty sandwich boxes, cartons of milk 
sour as the thoughts that bring him 
always back to this one stale space, 
meandering through the same passage as 
the flies that cannot escape the ever 
decreasing circles through which both 
turn. What vocabulary is there left
to describe this place of refuge?
One that is limited too, stumbling 
over words as unfamiliar as the far 
reaches of his imagination, holding 
onto this little, waiting only on a 
narrow retreat. But you are unfamiliar 
to him now too, circling carefully,
bereft of all that once bound us together,
negotiating the terms of a love that 
would dare transcend shallow memory.

J.M. Summers was born and still lives in South Wales. The former editor of a number of small press magazines, he is currently working on his first collection.