Poem: The Thing Itself

The Thing Itself
by Jack Brummet

I don't know which is better,
to dream it or see it,

to see it right now,
or to have seen it.

I don't know which is better,
the memory or the thing itself.

The memory can be repeated forever
but loses fidelity like an old record

and the fictions your mind confects
start filling in the gaps

until the memory becomes the framework
for what we wanted to be, or what should have been.
---o0o