A New Poem

Sometimes late at night,
even as the cat slumbers
at my feet, I lie awake
struggling to remember
the exact color of Robert's eyes.  
Were they the color of the pebbles
we collected at the shore summer
before last or more like the antique
linen we bought that time in Montreal?
My brain tries the colors in the void
of his eye sockets in the unfinished
picture I hold up to the light in my mind.  
I think I have discovered the color
but realize that it is gone like the working
knowledge of calculus that in my younger
days came easy as the cat’s slumber.  
What other memories have I lost
like the cat beginning to shed her winter
coat on a warm April day? Can I dare to sleep
for fear of a synapse searing and releasing
yet another memory that will lie on the carpet
until picked up and throw away like the balls of matted hair.