Poem of the Moment
Every few weeks we pop a new poem up here to read or listen to. Enjoy!
When I Die Nobody Will Remember My Zodiac Sign
When I keel over from a heart attack
in the Costco parking lot, nobody will say
“what a Pisces.” No one will care that I crossed
my arms too much in conversation—a nervous
habit—or that I I gave up on Catholicism
in the tenth grade (except maybe the Catholics).
When I die, nobody will care
that I was the one who let her gas tank
run until it got past the E line. Or that I thought
peanuts were the poor man’s nut.
When you die, as long as you weren’t a horrible
person, there will always be something
good to keep in your pocket. The way
your forgetfulness was a calling card—
the scarf you left in the backseat
of your friend’s car, or the hat that’s still
in your ex-lover’s attic. Everybody has a secret
and here’s mine: I want there to be more things
about me that are forgotten
than remembered. I want the way
I buttered my toast to remain a mystery.
My sugarsick days alone in bed, a mystery.
I want the small moment I sat
watching a heron swoop low and hard
with its beak to be known only to me,
a box of dust. A used-to-be. A thing
that was here and then was not.
~ Brett Elizabeth Jenkins