When nothing else subsists from the past, after the people are dead... the smell and taste of things remains poised a long time, like souls...the immense edifice of memory

Marcel Proust The Remembrance of Things


Snails


As they slide over your tongue,
for half a second a muscle
on a muscle, an island
forming and subsiding
against the rocks of your teeth,

they'll take one moment
out from their journey
and drag you back in time;
to Rome, to Carthage,
to the newly dug ports

at Exeter and Southampton,
where you will see them
hung up in sacks, damp
and shining like freshly
picked apples.

Eventually, they will have you
settle in a place made
from the rocks and channels
of history books, paddling
gently in the froth at its edge,

before you hear a noise
that reminds you to swallow,
and you notice that everything
tastes faintly of iron.