It’s time to think of years
like a child thinks of days:
instead of stairs,
there are flights,
instead of shots,
bottles. Like whole things,
one is for nothing,
another is for love.
Tomorrow we’re building,
but today is for play.
Now it’s a field, not a blade.
Surrounded by too many days
that keep getting too small.
I’m getting too big,
stuffing days into boxes
and burying them in basements
that don’t belong to me.
John Lee Hooker died
the day I went into the city.
I found my girl and left her
even faster than I met her.
Now there’s something
I’m forgetting.
Not her name,
but the year I’ll scribble on the box.
It’s not a word, it’s a book.
And the title is a number,
a different kind of history.
The things we take get smaller.
The things we keep get bigger,
but time won’t be taken at all;
lonely as god, teasing with moments,
anchoring with albums, and tracing
in our heads the things we forget.
