Unforgettable

I walk in the dark dreamlands 

where there are no stars 

within the tangled forest 

where the tree limbs

reach for one another 

and the night is blotted out

and the black river is rising.

It is the river of forgetfulness 

and if we touch or drink the water 

we’ll sleep and then remember nothing 

from the start of our journey 

forward to the present.

Perhaps it would ease your heart 

to forget everything 

to shake the Etch A Sketch

until the window is empty 

and the breath of me

hanging in the cold air

has faded into nothing.

I’ll go where the unfinished poems

linger in oblivion, their crumpled bodies

lying on the ground like broken children 

mixed with unsuccessful prototypes

of jewelry heaped in tangles of thread

too unprofitable to waste time 

even in cutting them apart.