Recollection

Poem about forgetting

I smell like ashes.
A pipe you can’t drink out of.
a 2020-something 20-something, 
a recollection on two meals.

Consciousness is context — 
a rusted burning barrel of garbage.
Cigarette yellow garage and
sunset.

Severed.
Wire frame.
A/C stopped running.
On a busted window, bleeding
edges still think to click
the frame when the wind blows.

I’ve been thinking lately about
Forgetting. How it can maroon somebody.
You’re sharp as a cracked whip
with a yawning Sycamore memory

like dry land.
I think that must be a kind of sobriety.
I swim for months and years.

Grandma died of Dementia a while back.
Remember you squeezed her hand when she
forgot how to speak.
Remember she was grey and cold, and
thin as glass.
Like she would crack with pressure,
As if forgetting isn’t pressure
On its own.

Consciousness is context.
I’ve been thinking lately about forgetting.
About a burning trash barrel.
About a pipe you can’t drink out of.
Marooning.

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