Mentally

brain membrane

and wires tangled

like

the wires of an atomic bomb

being dismantled by trembling

bony fingers in a briefcase.

Our memories are everything to us;

perhaps what we value most

above all things.

When you die your memories

die too.

These moments disappear

forever like dust in the wind

or a fuse of the lightbulb

that has gone out.

It is incredible because the way

you remember something is specific

to what you see and hear and what

your brain was prepared to comprehend.

So when you die, your memories die.

That moment that existed in your memory

never existed at all if you are no longer

breathing to comprehend and make real its

existence.

Nothing is real.