After a While You Forget (Poem 295)

After a while you simply forget. 

You forget how to stand up, to sit 

   down, and how to move. 

You forget how to walk with liquid strides,

   how to swim 42 long, silent laps, 

   while shafts of sunlight sink

   into the cool tourmaline pool.

You forget how to talk to people 

   you meet while lingering over a

   mediocre Malbec on a shady patio, 

   how to chat with that sweet girl in 

   the pet store, who always looks at you 

   with a curious concern in 

   her rain-colored eyes.

You even (and not infrequently) forget 

   how to organize your thoughts into an 

   email to a friend from back home.

You certainly forget how to climb across

   seaweed-slick boulders at low tide,

   plucking hermit crabs from tide-pools

   to marvel at their affronted bravado 

   and the perfection of their tiny claws.

After a while, you even forget how 

   to dash across a snowy intersection

   for a five-dollar slab of 

   moist, gritty pretzels from a guy 

   with a shopping cart at Sixth and Vine,  

   and, you realize with a soft whoosh 

   of surprise, 

how to settle into the low-slung wobble

   and sway of the subway 

   on your way to 'the Vet' for 

   a Twi-Night Double Header 

   on a July afternoon so hot and 'umid

   that the air feels oxygen depleted, 

   as if it had already been breathed.

 (c) 2014, by Hannah Six