Amnesiacs

I remember the serious eloquence of hanging up

The receiver, attached by a curling umbilicus of plastic

To a phone, with a rotary dial

It felt cool and smooth and powerful

In the palm of eager youth

I remember waiting for the dial to turn

The sound it made

Like the lock on an antique chest of gossip

Whirling, furious

Turning its attention to the next number

And then a marathon argument

With someone whose number

My heart knew

I remember the violent satisfaction

Of the cradle, concussed

By its prodigal part

One of the most exquisite and terrible parts of being human

Is the power of recollection

Not just of the facts

But of how the facts felt

To narrate, from the first person, singular point-of-view

What the territory felt and smelled and tasted and sounded and looked like

Never mind the map

To a character written by an invisible silence

That becomes visible and articulate

In one specific, odd way

As you

Nothing artificial could do any justice at all to what it was like for you

To eat a hasty breakfast, or mutter about the cost of your coffee, or remember

The first time you saw someone of whom you are fond naked

And then to try to recapture some of that incredulous joy after all these years

Despite all the insults and little betrayals

We do not call up data

We live again in a moment that we contain

So many have succumbed to accidents or illnesses

That eat the memory alive

It is as fragile and complex in its beauty as the aroma

Of olive oil at just the right temperature

Massaging your nostrils with the fingers of the sun

Coaxing the rich, succulent ghosts of flowers and earth

Out of ancient, neglected parts of you

Because they are also swimming in its every

Sliding droplet

But temperatures change

Oil burns

Characters leave the stage and are forgotten

Do you remember the delirious, babbling cataract

Of discourse about the bloody pandemic?

Do you think it is strange that it has dwindled to a murmur?

That disaster is now cast as an old, trivial, boring extra

If it gets a part at all

And we all act as if we would just prefer to forget

"Well, that was during COVID, or whatever"

This is all we care to hear about the matter

We sigh and shake our heads

Spout some tepid bromide about "a challenging time"

And that's it

Back to work

We do not want to remember

We want to believe we are safe

We want things to appear to return to beige normality

We want to hear the music of that gnarled, relentless band

That ought to have retired years ago, but keeps playing

The old, familiar songs in the old, familiar way

So that we can sing along

And feel at home

Warm and alive

Impervious to change and pain

A more delicious, addictive illusion is hard to name

All safety is temporary for a being that will one day die

No one is rich enough to bribe death

We must remember

Who and what we are

And what we have lived through

If we are going to do anything with the present

That the future will celebrate

Ours is an age of amnesia

We are bored so often and so easily

That we have really stopped paying attention

How much of this do we really need to remember, after all?

It's like, on the web, right?

Just Google it or whatever

We have delegated the task of remembering to machines

Who will never carefully prepare, and then relish biting into, a sandwich and softly say, "I am sort of a genius, actually."

Who will never writhe with embarrassment in front of a spouse's parent

Who will never feel, with everything from adenoids to ankles

What it is like to give someone you really like

An implausibly prolonged, giggling orgasm

It was the smoked gouda

Of course I'm talking about the sandwich!

No one would have thought of that but me

"I am sort of a genius, actually."

You might not say it aloud

You might narrate the scene that way

And feel the irony and the secret, genuine pride

Wrestle with one another

For your heart

In the silence of yourself

From which all of your words rush

They cannot do it for us

Machines cannot remember being human

Only a human being knows what it is like

For a human being to be themselves

As I write, what I will have written, for you to read

Now

Only a human being can remember

What it was like for a human being

To live in any, given moment

In uncomfortable clothes

Meant for another occasion

When this or that irreverent event thundered in

And twisted the plot

The confusion, the fear, the despair

The grimacing pretending

The furtive, guilty research

The frustration

The incredulous disgust

The pleading with the story to change

The wail of mourning

For those who live, now

Only in the memories of human survivors

Who have a dusty, dire duty

To remember