Forgetting


My biggest beef with life is memory,
or lack thereof, and how I have to write
each thought down as it shows itself to me
and, just as quickly, shuffles out of sight.
I find that notes I've jotted on my hand
fade all too fast, before I've thought to read them
or blur so much I cannot understand
their messages when I find out I need them.
And when I scribble things on paper scraps
and stuff them in my pockets, they get squashed,
and when I have a further mental lapse,
they stay there and remember to get washed.
But if that's all the ill that's in my lot --
(I had an end to this, which I forgot.)


Daryl L. Houston