November 23, 2010

snow and forgetting

The sidewalks have disappeared, and gone, too, are the wads
of old gum, the cakey remnants of dog droppings, cigarettes down to the quick,
discarded wrappers, the garbage of the day. And so the odds
decrease of finding that single, lost earring, a not-quite-pocketed key. That thick
layer of white is like amnesia, and walking in it, I, too, can let my body
toddle forward, forgetting where it came from, forgetting what it knows.
I wish it weren’t so cold, or that I could erase for good what still lives below, shoddy
and unkempt, the narratives still dangling from their endings. But on it goes –
some things cannot be saved or tidied up, swept clear of asphalt ache.
And yet, like mulch, they feed the stories erupting from their wake.