Souvenir

A Journal

"I'm going to come back to West Virginia when this is over. There's something ancient and deeply-rooted in my soul. I like to think that I have left my ghost up one of those hollows, and I'll never really be able to leave for good until I find it. And I don't want to look for it, because I might find it and have to leave".----Breece D'J Pancake, in a letter to his mother. 

April Salzano


 

Amaurophiliac



Touch me only when I cannot

see it coming. The darkness

transforms you, stranger. Perfect.

In daylight, blindfold me. I cannot see

sun variegated through window prism.

Ride me backward in time

before fire illuminated the faces of dawn.

Groping for insight, imagination,

pretending away flaws. Yours. Mine. 

 


I confess to not having a favorite souvenir among the few that I have actually saved, but when I hear the term, I always think of the line my brother said when he was about three years old and found picking a scab: "It's a scab, it's a scar, it's a souvenir." 

 

 

 Recently nominated for two Pushcart awards, April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. She is currently working on a memoir on raising a child with autism and has recently finished two collections of poetry. The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press (www.kindofahurricanepress.com).