F L I C K E R - Emmanuel Katto Uganda Poem by Emmanuel Katto

it's another day and the sun decides to sleep in

the hidden hazel lost in her eyes, hanging by a moment

like the blush of a memory, longing for affection

once genuine as sending birthday cards



now she looks for familiar names in sunday obituaries

like pressed flowers in old stationeries

where youth is wasted on

like a secondhand charm lonely in the grass,

discarded jewelry that once held tears that dried a long time ago



summer before college started with stolen kisses and too many beers and cigarettes

and spending lazy afternoons in each other's arms in an old pickup



but tattooed mistakes eventually fade



and all that is left and all that is right is what stares back from the window

while she takes her maintenance medication for the morning

as ghosts dance with the flowers outside

hoping for a faint flicker of his smile

buried somewhere in the yellow, white and pink