Things I didn’t know I would remember:

The determination of the last-born kitten,
left unwashed,
crayoned pages tied in bright red bows
at Christmas,
rabbit hutches I passed on the way to work,
the kitchen booth my father built
in the house where I was born.
That mysterious house, a misplaced
Russian postcard in Helena, Montana,
the four-leaf clover my Bahamian friend
found for me beneath the snow,
a penny I picked up on a rainy Oregon road.
The snow cream my mother made,
tractors on the road,
barges on the river,
roadside markers I stopped to read,
sticks and stones I carried home.
The bottomless blue chair
we photographed in a field of wild grass,
smoke from Nikki’s chimney in Carmel.
Standing in the kitchen the first time
I used the phrase, “twenty years ago.”

Things I thought I would remember
and didn’t:

The stories a country music D.J. told.
Dutch cigars. Dinner at DiConti.
My 21st birthday in a restaurant made from a church.
The Zuni bracelet he took back.
Dothan, Alabama and Paducah, Kentucky,
not the places but the words.