Whatever it was that just flew out of my head
did not leave a trace,
not a contrail in the sky
not a footprint in a field of new snow.

The last thing I remember
is reading a sentence
in a long biography of Abraham Lincoln,
something about his face being so ugly

it became beautiful
in the eyes of Walt Whitman,
but there was something after
that made me fold down the corner

of the page and close the book—
so much I cannot think of today,
a team of white birds lifting off a shoreline
and disappearing into the sun.


 = Karen Marek