Getting Back On Track

Getting Back On Track You can’t be tying a string around your finger Every time you have to remember Why it is you went into the kitchen, Or what it was you came into the garage for anyway. You stand in front of the fridge, In a room cluttered with thousands of memory joggers- A block of carving knives, that lasting gift from your wedding, The painted rose on a plate from a grateful patient, A colonial tea canister from Williamsburg With a key to stop its contents being purloined, And the gallery of photographs held by magnets on the door, And it is as if you were gazing at some rebuilt city, Which has been completely redesigned After an atomic bomb has wiped All the definitive land marks off the map, Wondering why you are there, And what pressing task, Which was screaming for attention, Caused you to sleepwalk, And if the telltale signs of senility Are already devastating your mind. Then picking your way back to the bathroom You peer into the mirror Straining for the clue, And with an Archimedean exaltation, Discover the switch of memory And reluctantly admitting your humanity, Put your day back on track once more.