Memories sprout from our heads

The memory of you comes as if through a tunnel, a long concrete cylinder like the one that soldier killed himself in, too lonely a place to bear. So this is a tunnel we reach to the edges of, to pull ourselves through though we never can leave it entirely. The dog runs beneath the vaulted ceiling, laps up and over the futon, shoving the cushion to the ground as she tucks her legs into her stomach, peels her ears behind her spotted head, keeps pace. The wise old tortie and the roundish orange tabby (sometimes Garfield swiping food, sometimes Winnie the Pooh stuck between fence posts) tucked in the closet of a bedroom strung with quarter inch cables and boom stands and guitars leaned against walls. My music room, across the hall from your photography room. A room for each of our unfinished business, the things we would later abandon without ever thinking we could let go. A burgundy ring around the bathtub the color of hair dye, the color of the SUV a drunk totaled from behind at a stoplight. The stain in the tub reminds me that this memory is outside the tunnel and I am not, because your hair is no longer that color.