I Can't Remember

"Whose poetry do you read?"

The young employee of the bookstore asked.

His question beckoned, like her prompt, "Come with me, into the field of sunflowers."

I could see their brave spines and burnished disks, simply standing tall.

I could see movements resembling silk, like Dr. J's historical half-circle, painted swiftly and precisely in the indomitable key.

I could hear the sound of you reading out loud to me.

I could see a sea of blue encircling me, full of primal promise.

Though I've read you a thousand times, I could not remember your name to offer answer to his query.

I could only remember the quiver, the quake.

I could still feel the razor edge of a new day.

I could still feel right becoming wrong in the marrow of my bones.

Though I could not remember your name, or many other names for that matter, I could console myself with your words, "It is idle to fault a net for having holes."

Does it matter that this young boy, who just completed his MFA in poetry, many years after I completed mine, hung this question in the air with arid precocity?

That his question suggested a repartee, the likes of which I used to reign as queen?

Does it matter that it is now my feet, no longer my mind, that could nimbly complete an 8-beat phrase to the wit of Celia Cruz?

Names, you suggested anyway, could be corrosive.

Perhaps my inability, then, to recall your name is simply my body's insistence on its own, inimitable knowledge of the world.