-Listen, men..

let’s remember everything;

things amounting to less than happiness.

let’s remember happiness and fulfillment;

the screeching screen-doors
springing to the entries and the outside of things.

let’s remember the moments

elasticized to the other end of our lifetimes;

remember the sounds of the playgrounds;

the seriousness of the ballparks.

let’s recall the permanence of one slow dance;

remember running fast to the fences,

climbing the chain-links to the other side.

let’s remember Saturday nights

and the flood of the girls, older than we were

passing in a wind, inches over the green linoleum.

let’s remember Sunday nights and the flood

of aromas from the kitchens and the women

who made them drift through the occupied

tenements.

let’s remember laying awake in our beds

agonizing the afternoon conversation which came
to end something we thought would never end.

let’s remember all of it.
listen, men;—

let’s remember everything.

                                          3/6/12