the cat's been dead now
for quite a few years,
but sometimes the slight hissing,
crackling sounds
(like sparks snapping in the air)
coming from the furnace room below
make me believe --
(subconsciously at first)
that Barney's still down there
scratching around in his litter box,
scratching around in his litter box.
(but I know it's not him.
I know it's not him.
I know it's not him.)
I wish I could remember all the good things
I’ve learned in my life,
not the bad things,
only the good things:
how to dance the rumba with my beautiful wife,
the names of the constellations and the moons of Saturn,
the names of the 12 cranial nerves; I recall
the memory aid for remembering them:
On Old Olympus Towering Top . . .
but the nerves themselves – gone,
the names of all the muscles and nerves,
bones, arteries and veins in the human body,
how to read and speak Flemish,
how to read Virgil and Ovid and Catullus in Latin,
Moliere, Pascal, Camus, Victor Hugo,
Andre Gide and Alain-Fournier in French,
the world weight-lifting records for the press,
snatch, and clean and jerk in all the weight classes,
the Kreb’s Cycle, and the formulas for Boyle’s Law,
Laplace’s Law, Gay-Lussac’s Law, Avogadro’s Number,
and how to build a Faraday Cage.
Yes, I wish I could recall all the good things
in my life, only
the good things.
Mike Eastbrook has been writing poetry "for so long that Methuselah should be taking notice..." He's published 15 chapbooks over the years, the last one being "when Patti would fall asleep" by Liquid Paper Press in 2003.
Contact Mike by e-mail:mestabrook@comcast.net
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