Rubberband and Paperclip

by Vincent Noto              

 With memory we contend.
Take your pick.  Straddle a roan’s back
through a meadowed trough beneath
crests of wooded waves. Along

the Emigrant Wilderness
Corridor, traverse a
frozen mountain lake of
yellowed opalescent glass.

A rubberband backward-flung
by the power of its own
break.  Though forward we go, there’s
no reclaiming what’s passed.  No

ebooks here, rusted paperclips
in pages long since unread
top ends peppered with foxing,
rotted bands no longer binding

and the preserved remains
of startled silverfish pressed like
flowers between deckle-edged
pages, on shelves dust-layered,

volumes standing, flanks
leaning, braced, as our memories,
holdout acolytes of
a dying religion.