The Economy of Memory

I'm watching a sea of static on TV
    late at night

I'm talking to my girlfriend on the phone

I'm writing a poem
    and finishing it later

I'm living in a tent behind Hampshire College

I'm going nowhere

I'm standing on the balcony of F2,
    going nowhere

I'm living on Bridge Street in Northampton

I'm thinking about thinking

I'm thinking about memory

I'm taking off my shirt

I'm looking at the clock

I'm wondering how it will end
    and when it began

I'm floating, a tiny black-eyed fetus
    in amniotic fluid

I'm making notes for a future poem

I'm learning to write the alphabet
    by tracing sandpaper letters

I'm writing a story for the first time
    in my life

I am six

I am twenty-five

I am thirty-four

I'm telling her about myself

I'm using her attention
    to search through my memory,
    to reconstruct myself
    from different angles

I'm telling you about telling her

I'm remembering remembering



-Jim DuBois
Dec 13, 2003