Theseus in Old Age

There had been a clue for getting out. 
But in these later days, large portions of life 
get lost in the wide cracks between events, 
and memory itself twists into a labyrinth. 
 
How many corners did I turn in Paris—some with you,
some with others from a past so distant
none of its light can reach our telescopes? 
 
Shadows crawl over wallpaper 
smudging its design and images to a fog, 
seep into details of the crown molding 
until they’re nondescript as night. 
 
I never expected my mind to become a maze 
with shifting walls and floors, shuffling mementos 
until their meanings change. 
 
There used to be a vase of peonies along this hall, 
I think. Or maybe that was downstairs by the phone. 
The souvenir of our time in Florence 
was placed in a cupboard for so long, the dailiness 
of the other cups rubbed onto it. 
 
I once held your hand all night as we slept, 
only to wake and realize you were someone else, 
or I was. 
 
There’s a bamboo box on a shelf by the sink, 
a reliquary of objects from long ago 
meant to conjure places and people. 
 
Here’s a newspaper clipping, a lacquered Russian egg, 
a plastic horse pendant. But their magic 
no longer calls to me, echoes I’m too far away 
to hear—long faded to silence. 
 
Even this piece of thread, golden, so finely woven: 
I think it was supposed to lead me somewhere.