The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Some things can only be seen

Spattered, smeared, beaded

By accretions. Rendered visibly

useless, an easy target for avoidance.

Magnificent cathedrals honored

Only in their ruin, awaiting

The touch of attenuating sun

Gentle enough to cleanse them

To their clinging state of absence.

Some things are awesome

Only with invisibility:

The card sharp’s flick,

Magician’s trick, effortless

Soaring of a voice. Others

Revel in acceptance: arm-thick

Cabling suspending bridges,

The shuddering grunt of muscle;

Admiring machinery and not result.

By dusk the spider hovers

Magical, target center in

Invisible bullseyes.

By dawn the bullseye shines

But the magic show is over.

The age-old question looms,

Which is the greater work?

The cathedral or the architect?

The trickster or the trick?

If we preserved our memories in candies… Each one, each flavor,



Releasing a specific other time back into our minds.



Bags of winter nights all minty fresh, first kisses, that time you skinned your knee.



The painful days would slice your tongue that candy way.



The days we don’t recall would be the ones we ate unconscious,



Half a bagful disappeared without our noticing.



Rich chocolate of love, the peppermint of anger,



The anise rum of jealous rage, the coconut of sorrow.



We’d grow bloated on the past.



Some memories, like any other memory, would surface



From the cushions of a couch, sticky, pasted over



Dust and hair and scraps of paper wrapping, and we’d hold them



Pondering whether they are sweet, or just the flavor of regret.