Paper portals

A late summer love poem

Photo by Intricate Explorer on Unsplash

In a drawer in a room where I used to sleep 
there are strips of paper. 
Notes, written between those we played; 
passed beneath stands, hand to hand. 

Miniature letters in blue, black and red, 
words with no meaning now. 
Unreadable scribbles, 
unknowable thoughts. 

Still though, the sight of them conjures 
the smell of old books in my nostrils; 
the sound of Finlandia in my ears; 
late summer sun behind my eyes. 

They are talisman, all. 
To bin them - unthinkable. 
To move them - unimaginable. 

Their potency and magic 
(like that of their author) 
assured only by time and space.