Amber Would Have Been Her Name

Memory

A burnt match of recognition
Funny what burns brightest and what
Just fades to ashes

An extended hand
Me reading you a short story by Toni Cade Bambara
Though I practically had it memorized

The things we find important enough to remember: Gorilla My Love
But not the time I wanted to try on maternity dresses at Ohrbach’s
Because you had me picturing motherhood

I don’t remember ever wanting to be anyone's mother
But did I ever tell you that?

You said if you ever had a daughter
You’d name her Amber

A sun-lit archive
Powerful; I can picture that

What burns brightest and what just
Turns to ashes? Me calling you the Lenny Bruce of produce
Because you said if strawberries were a drug
You’d be an addict

Ashes to ashes dust to dust:  what encompassed us
Is too ephemeral to recall

Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, CA-based writer who has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press), her debut poetry collection, is available on Amazon; In a Place of Dreams, her digital chapbook, can be found at www.jerryjazzmusician.com