Visitors (Poetry)

Should I recognise this face?
There is something in the eyes that looks familiar -
a faint echo of someone I once knew.

Names escape me -
fly like birds to perch just out of reach
while I smile at these persistent, kindly strangers -
visitors who come to tell me stories,
show old snapshots from a past they say we shared.

And sometimes I imagine I remember
as something clicks far-off inside my head -
a dream of life, a snatch of conversation
leaking from behind a door, ajar
for one odd moment, just a crack of light.

What history have I to tell another
when time has tricked me into a strange place
where every day is different?
The vision trembles, blurrs, its colours bleed
as I try, and try, and try to name a face.