FORGETTING

Forgetting
Age 61, On the phone, 2005
-- This is one poem, from my autobiographical series of poems, that I posted here at WriteSpike. Go to my Stories section for others. They are in chronological order. --

At the age of 18
my girlfriend had dumped me -
but only six weeks earlier
in our long-distance relationship
we had planned to be together
for the summer

she could never tell me why
except that she still liked me
but needed to be alone

the weekend she told me
I took her to some of my favorite places
hoping to remind her how well we got along;
even sitting on the grass divider
of the Mid-Cape Highway at midnight
watching the cars crest a hill
(their lights in the full darkness
breaking over the top
like waves breaking over a sandbar )
did not change her mind

the next day after she left
I woke up shaking

yet at the end of the summer
she called in tears
"What was I thinking?" she asked
but it was too late
our moment had passed

decades later I was on the phone with her
as she had kept calling me
wanting to stay in touch
finally, I asked what she had never explained
"Why did you dump me?"

there was silence on the phone
"I dumped you?" she said
"I thought you dumped me."

"No, it was you
quite definitely,
I spent a weekend trying to change your mind
but you would not budge and
then you left and went to Boston"

"Oh," she murmured
"I did not remember that"

* * * * *

My mother did not know the reason
nor my wife
nor I
nor even my brother
who hit me over and over
as I stood there

he grabbed my t-shirt
pulling it till it ripped
"You're an animal," he said

but I did not hit back -
because of my training in non-violence
and because I wanted my mother
to recognize the depth
of his illness

his anger played out
I left
waking up the next day
to bruises and stiffness
and after that
any pretense
of being able to get along with him
was gone

yet my mother
as she often did
never pressed him for an answer
and simply let the matter drop
I was forced to follow
her lead

a decade later
after my mother had died
my brother and I were taking on the phone
about some lingering estate matters;
I asked my brother why he had hit me
and never apologized

there was an abrupt silence
"I don't remember hitting you," he said

"Ma was there, my wife was there
and no one understood the reason."

"I'm not saying you're wrong
I just don't remember it."

and I never spoke to him again