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Poetry • by Pearl Pirie
PLAY AUDIO VERSION: voice of Pearl Pirie
a day's strategies for shrunken working memory
in grocery aisle multitask the trial of traffic jammed carts
and price of jam and let mouth keep pattering
until I'm ready to check in with my list
in time to hear ...peanut butter, tanned milk...
hold up. tanned milk? do I mean
chocolate milk or canned milk? rack the
neutral duck at why I would want either.
remember a recipe. canned, tinned, same-same. kay.
let the body carry what it can. at home,
memories are carried in the gestures
let the muscle move to retain scissors with fingers
miming over the crossing of the room.
while I wipe the counter, seeking pudding,
the wrist keeps up a reminder rhythm.
one mimes a twisted fist -- I am looking
for a spoon. a spoon. that echo continues
while the other hand gets the bowl.
what am I doing? right hand removes
the question by its motion answering:
spoon, spoon, get a spoon.
there’s another rhythm rising to remind
BA de de de BA BA de de de BA
BA de de de BA? BA de in the car
my soundtrack goes autoloop on reminding
what I should check on -- jacket in the car?
strategies for impaired short term memory hum
as my legs have begun to look for keys
while eye and fingers are after keys -- not in bag,
not in bathroom, not on desk, not on counter
not under newspaper, not in shopping bags,
check in with tongue... jack at in the kar
jack at in dakar jack a Tin dakar
listen, let it repeat until I'm sure it is keeping
an accurate playback off of tongue. listen
for the sound stack to slip sideways from
jack at india dakar. jacket. in the car?.
realize the mattress of bladder
pressed its pee urgently under
the duvet of waist. jackajackajacka. wha?
jacket. in the car? jacket. in the car?
side tracked. hand is cupped like a lego man.
what am I in the midst of. water. where is glass.
got it. and I drink. and I eat. a rhythm back beats
BA de de de BA BA de de de BA
why do I want the car? what do I need
for the car? keys. rejoin the sum
of the dotted lines of travel for the key.
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[Distillate © HA&L + Pearl Pirie | {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]
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