04-28-2016, 02:50 PM
What we Forget
I used to think memory was a jar
of bright glass marbles that I would collect:
a binary equation of black and white.
There is a jar but it is filled
with water that I drink, and try to hold
the taste on my tongue. It is here
then gone, a tape recorded over.
I no longer remember the homes
I grew up in. I am four drawing on the wall
with a crayon. Its color is now sepia is now gone.
These pieces of string tied to my fingers
are spider web insubstantial, so few
I am surprised I know myself--another lie.
I’m not an artist. Sharp lines blur.
I use words to remember words to remember
her words, all of their words.
Even that isn’t true. I try to recall
their voices. Grief makes us all
stock photographs, mute
in someone else’s frame. Removed
to make way for something new.
I used to think memory was a jar
of bright glass marbles that I would collect:
a binary equation of black and white.
There is a jar but it is filled
with water that I drink, and try to hold
the taste on my tongue. It is here
then gone, a tape recorded over.
I no longer remember the homes
I grew up in. I am four drawing on the wall
with a crayon. Its color is now sepia is now gone.
These pieces of string tied to my fingers
are spider web insubstantial, so few
I am surprised I know myself--another lie.
I’m not an artist. Sharp lines blur.
I use words to remember words to remember
her words, all of their words.
Even that isn’t true. I try to recall
their voices. Grief makes us all
stock photographs, mute
in someone else’s frame. Removed
to make way for something new.
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson