Memory Man you make yourself
comfortable in the darkness beside me
your weight and scent unwelcome
and you reach--

stretch to my side while I read, slithering
your greedy arms around me searching
and defiling my respite,

your creeping fingers play
upon my neck as I pull the bow searching for song,
I find only hollowness and wanting
as they slip
softly around and constrict.

I curse you and excise your spirit
but you return in the dead quiet
with gin on your breath and sigh
into my ear, silencing my call