Series Poem by Geoffrey G. O'Brien

To remember people in the act
Of speaking is to love them
And not the turquoise substrate
Redon supposed was all there was
To vases, any container, the vessel
Objects are. To remember
People in the act of speaking
Is to love them, but not for anything
They say. An open mouth
Unembarrassed in the lower parts
Of the face, vase that when
It's drawn becomes a lamp
Now that it's getting darker
Earlier, done before we are
Finished forgetting not to be,
Thinking about the lip of the vase
Or a smudge of stray indigo
Above it, and the butterfly about
To test the limits of what's happened
Once and less than once.