(forgetful)

I am forgetful.
It is in my nature
to be so.
It keeps the world
fresh.
But there is a great
deal of repetition.
“It’s a big world,”
someone said
“to do it all by
trial & error.”
I have never
forgotten that.
Nor other usesless
details, a novelist’s
details I always
think.
But I do not write
novels.

The fact that he
wore a cap that
day in December,
or his crisp
striped shirts
he never ironed.

3/22/99