On Memory and Flooded Kitchens

One day, gathered around a table decorated with dishes of potatoes,

our grandchildren’s names will leave us

and we will hunt wildly for them within the wearied old well of our minds.

Their beginning letters will sink to the bottom, and every name

will become a face - a he, a she,

A lazy, giggly tader-head over there.

We’ll forget other things, too:

to turn right by the white house,

to make sure the old dog gets fed,

to turn off the spicket in the sink.

Our kitchen will flood, and we’ll ask our old minds what to do

and finding an answer will be like finding the cards

we thought we bought for birthdays passed but never did.

Our grandkids will ponder where to keep us, and we will ask who they are;

they will ask who we are,

and we won’t know, and they won’t know, either.

Then, one day, gathered around a table with dishes of potatoes,

all we know will leave us.
All the answers in our wearied old minds

will be next to the cards

with the beginning letters of our grand children’s names,

beneath the dog food and the spicket

at the very bottom of the well.