I asked him to tell me a good memory.
He said,
“The year I lived in Italy.”
He said,
“Your turn.”
I said,
“One time I saw a fox
run past me in the night.”
He said he has
many good memories
to choose from.
I didn’t say
I associate the word memory
with pain.
I didn’t say
I am not someone
who gets to live in Italy,
and I didn’t say
it seems almost perverse to me
that a person could have
so many good memories.
I didn’t say
how sad I felt
at the difference between us
in what memory means.
I didn’t say
I had to think awhile
to try to remember
something good,
and the best I could find
was something wild
fleeing through the dark.
