Moment and memory

The word a friend suggested to me was belly-laugh. This is how I use it:

Moment and memory

“How long does it take for moment to become memory?”

The elderly gentleman takes his eyes off his watch.

“Why must you, miss, ask this question?”

He answers my question with another question!

I gaze into his grey-blue eyes:

Curious, compassionate, grey-blue eyes.

“It's a thought I can't let go off,”

I tell the gentleman with grey-blue eyes.

He laughs as if I've told him a joke;

A hard laugh, a belly-laugh!

His toothless mouth finds a voice:

“A moment's just a moment. We make it memory.

To live in the moment, you forget the past.

To remember the moment, you live it again.

If you mustn't remember, just let it pass.”

I watch as he winds his old wristwatch:

Time slips through those wrinkled fingers,

A moment passes, without its memory.