Leonard kept his
memory in a box behind the sofa-
metal clasps held in each
thought
each
verse...
Tape recorder in hand
he would walk to his
mother's home
an alarm on his watch to tell him when to
eat.
Leonard met a girl named Silva on the way to
Liverpool
who had a
sweet smile and
dark hair
she smiled at him when he asked her to speak her name into the
microphone and
she held his hand for a long time
until he got off the
train.
He
forgot her name by the time he reached the sidewalk
he didn't see her wave from the window...
couldn't
figure out why his hand felt so warm.
At four-thirty he received a call from the
dentist
as
usual he'd missed his appointment
and forgot to
call.
Leonard returned home three days later
a pack of
biscuits in his nap-sack and a letter from his
Da'.
He read back to the time in his
youth
when he longed to be something he was not-
he just wished he could remember
long enough to be it.
At night he would dream of his college years at Cambridge
and whisper sweet thoughts in the recorder by his bed
there wasn't any room in the dreams for the future
they would leave him the moment he'd wake up.
But the chill in the air and the taste of the cold beef on his tongue
set him up in the night to record... and he listened rapt as the he learned
all about
his weekend from the tapes. The things he had seen, the names he'd learned
- all forgotten... someone else's life.
The pages shuffled silently into his box behind the couch
A lifetime of words all forgotten.
In a few days he would read a volume or two and imagine that he could
remember them all in a breath. He prayed that he'd never forget
where they were...he feared he would
He wished he knew how to draw.