Memory works in strange ways. In one brief moment, an act is intense, organic and erotic. And like a “cloudburst, sultry and dense”, it dissipates in the mind, shedding density (and importance) to fade to almost nothing. It is only when the atmospheric pressure again changes that the mind wanders to stores of memory to find that moment again in the ever-expanding archive of moments.

Semen
–Pablo Neruda
Because no words suffice for this cry
it lives as a blood-colored syllable.

And circles a ring of desire
like a cloudburst, sultry and dense:
red sulphate of quicklime, a secret sun
opening and closing the genital doors.

Original