How can memory be so fickle?
How can it be so stubborn?

Why is the bad child of the brain
in charge of its treasures?

Who cares whether reason can make its argument?
Who worries whether imagination will fail?

But why can’t memory
go into the rooms of the past

and bring back that one day we ask for—
the only one we want,

the one we placed so carefully
saving it for now

when we would (at last)
sit down and listen

when we would give it
our undivided attention

when we would love it
for what it was.