What if, instead of imagining that
you happen to pluck a moment
out of the air, your word-thirsty
tongue snagging it like a tasty bug
and tucking it into a pocket of memory—
what if that darting insect of a flash
instead taps you on the shoulder?

Here I am, it whispers, yours to notice,
and, if you’re clever, you pause, write it,
maybe paint it, capturing in words
or watercolors the way light silvers
her hair or how his chuckle rumbles
through your ribs.

Perhaps such moments present
sweet gifts that, while fleeting,
become part of the mystery that you,
baby mystic, live every day.
Tomorrow you will be offered
another and another and another,
too quickly whizzing by, but they
snag you more often than you realize.

Floaters, you think. Glimmers.
Sparks. Exactly.

Did you imagine them to be random
accidents? What if these expansive
snippets select the unsuspecting,
wait to see if you bite?

And when you think to
commemorate them, hang them
in your museum of memory,
enlivening them with breath as you
speak of them, you make them live
again.

These ecstatic moments out of time
choose us, the little buggers
vying for our attention,
snippets of what-was-that?
winks presenting themselves
for our wide-eyed astonishment,
our hey-look-at-that! delight.