My neighbor Ben’s been dead since spring,
his memory gone for longer, yet
his driver’s license sits in my car —
stuck, I think, to the base of my backpack
when I set it down on a postal counter
where someone — widow or executor — must’ve
left it behind, their own mind rocked
by too much grief-smog smothering the have-tos.
Once I thought I heard my mother calling
clear across a KMart, even though
I knew I’d left her dozing or dazed
on a couch at home — some semblance of resting
while I dealt with errands that could not wait
— and, truth be told, also some chores
that let me stay away from the house
a little while longer, to breathe off-script
away from the memories — never to line up,
hers against mine — of what should have been.
Or, let’s be precise, of what we wanted to insist
the memories should have been. I hear Ben sang
a lot of hymns in his time. My fault,
among my many others, not making time to hear
the singing, though I feel not guilt,
just sadness. Clutching and squeezing a watch
won’t make its face roll out any flatter
or wider. Time is not a piecrust one
can stretch or lattice into enoughness,
no matter how many badges one collects
for working instead of sleeping, for other
bargains with devils and demons. I shall
make time, this next new year,
to hold what sweetness it can, but also
let it crumble and flake, as it must,
like pastry and soil and other layers
from which good thoughts may somehow emerge.