We do not remember days, we remember moments.
- Cesare Pavese
You could swear you’ve been here before
this scene from the Age of Innocence
but you don’t remember whether you were with anyone -
anyone worth remembering that is.
You remember being upstaged at Starbuck’s
your five minute car wash
a five hour trance with a bumper buffer.
You can’t imagine what you were thinking
so you retrieve your journal entry
and take out the Sharpies.
Your aptitude refreshed you remember
that you were trying to master
the Art of the Wheel
(Is that why your father is here?)
No, that’s not it.
Return to something more telling.
The grape arbor that summer afternoon in Sedona?
The white sandy beach in a cove off the tip of Provincetown?
What about that walk through the snow?
Ducking into a small bistro to get out of the rain?
Now you’ve become a twitching hyperbolic saint
dispensing Pez to the polloi.
More retelling.
It was here before you.
These fields of dreams, these homes, these people.
You managed to botch the last still life
and you’re still in the game.
But that’s the name of the game, isn’t it?
Your soul – did I say soul? – wasn’t into it.
Nor was your body.
You were shortchanged, but nonetheless you pocketed the coins
and smiled into the camera.
Fancy that!
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Ivan Efimov
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