Of course I’ve learned a great deal from listening to others,
even though I can’t recall anything specific.
Didn’t you say that attitude is everything?
That those who seldom receive acknowledgment
are representative of a bad attitude?
Which surely explains why no one remembers me
with the exception of the mailman,
who still delivers my mail to the wrong address,
and my doctor who contends that I recently had an operation
in which I died on the table,
my name and favorite quotation engraved on my tombstone. . .
QUESTIONS
No, I don’t necessarily think that I’m asleep,
but I can’t say for certain that I’m awake either.
It’s been this way for as long as I can remember,
which goes back to a time when I used to sit
in a child care center with other child prisoners,
waiting for someone to get me, which was usually
an old woman named Babu who lived about three blocks
away with a son in his forties who used to sit on a ragged
couch with his feet up on a coffee table while watching
programs on television, none of which are still around.
Then, some people who were known to be my parents,
would suddenly appear and drive me to a place called home,
and eating with them I often wondered why they asked me
questions like, “What did you do today?” which was difficult
to answer when all I remembered was clutching a blanket
and waiting—for what seemed an eternity—for my life
to somehow change, and no longer be surrounded
by strange adults and child prisoners like myself.
And no, I don’t necessarily think that I’m asleep,
but I can’t say for certain that I’m awake either. . .
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