and I am oddly stressed about it,
as though I am back in the sixth grade
with Mrs. Keuter, who never cracked
a smile the whole year, insisting that
we recite in front of the class—a
particular kind of torture.

I wrote poetry. I felt words swimming
through me all the time, but I could not
make them stick in my brain long
enough to spit them back from memory.

And now, a new teacher, a well-known
poet at a writers’ workshop, has
assigned a bunch of grownup poets
to memorize and recite a poem
by the end of the week, and I find
that my brain is less sticky than ever.

Who forgot to install the file cabinet
in my brain full of fresh manila
folders crammed with syllables
so that I might reach in and retrieve
them, easy to recall, any time I wanted?

I could blame my about-to-be
65-year-old gray matter, but I think
that the words have grown used
to slipping downstream through
my left hemisphere like salmon.

If I don’t record them as soon
as they surface, hungry for mayflies,
the wily words fin away, heading
for the sea, joining so many others
in a school of their peers adding
to the great sea of poems

that some can remember
and so many of us cannot.

•••

(Photo: ballyscanlon / Getty Images)