In the kitchen on the floor
counting the tiles
Again because the number slips
Like all the other numbers slip
Nothing can be proven this way
or solved
And when you call, you never mean to call
the names you say are not the names
You leave the windows open while the neighbors
try not to see
But sometimes it is pieced together
A quilt like waves in a squall
Electricity the thread
A brilliant moment of remembrance
An aching knowledge of what is lost
It is buried again
a bicycle thrown in the Limmat (or was it the Platte?)
visible only from the bridge
A stranger in your house and picture frames
A mouse in our water maze
O, captive experiment “ it’s for your own good!”
Forgetting is the cruelest
and yours has made us cruel
But we feed you pancakes and talk about clouds
Sometimes we cry and you see us
as children in sweaters as you struggle to pay the electric bill
It’s been a hundred years at least if it’s been
no time at all?
Keeping you here with the lights on during the day
We must always wear our glasses
You draw clocks and we set clocks as purposeful compasses
whose needles spin in your vertiginous seas
A meaningless countdown
We contain you here as you leave
for the sake of memories
Contributing Writer Emeritus
University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine
My life consists of math, lasers, optics, neuroscience, visual art and puppies.