Memory the cruelest reward

A fly in honey on warm buttered bread

Memory's burns with the sting of raw flesh

Tenderest words with rose thorns said

Burrs in lotion chafe then refresh

Rainbow thoughts of rotting shrouds

Dreams burst in past glory's tomb

dancing with glistening gossamer clouds

devouring dusty shadows of doom

Lost an infant's time faded smile

Love's delicate embryonic perfume

Saccharin's aftertaste of bile

in mists of the past thistles bloom