It’s coming, my absence
from myself, given the trouble I’m having remembering
all the words I’ve forgotten lately. Last night

in the crawl space, looking at a cast iron pipe
that’s rusted through, that leaks dishwasher water
and poo, when I wanted to ask Eve for scissors
so I could cut away the plastic over the crawl space dirt,
all I could come up with was “the cutty things.”

I’ve read that a goldfish, by the time it’s gone once
through Remembrance of Things Past, can’t recall
how a fish could read such a big book, or that it’s a fish,
or what madeleines taste like in Paris.

And I’ve seen shopping carts roll away on their own,
into the woods, away from civilization
when it’s time to die, when they can’t hold
anymore cat litter or frozen peas in their bellies.

The tragedy I anticipate isn’t my eventual hollowness,
my resemblance to a gourd, but that I won’t recall
I bought a gun for such a turn, or where it is,
or how to buy and eat a last strawberry before I’m through
thinking the people who think this is all a dream
are dreaming, it’s all rusty pipes and strawberries
and wondering if it’s too late to read Proust, too early
to leave for my funeral so I get a good seat,
and just the right time to appreciate how beautiful
rust is, all the reds and oranges and browns
it comes up with, and that it can paint with metal,
and that I am loved, and love, and was here to wonder

if ghosts are afraid of ghosts too.