| Robert
Sward
Mr.
Amnesia
Even
an amnesiac remembers some things better than others.
In
one past life I was a subway conductor
for
the Chicago subway system.
In
another I was--Gosh, I forgot!
Anyway,
some years ago, I was run over
by
a sports car. Ever since that time
I
find I cannot go more than a few days
without
leaving my body at least briefly
and
then coming back to it. Again and again.
I
can't seem to stay in Chicago or in any city,
for
that matter, and in one body,
for
very long.
I
once wrote a forty-nine line poem
made
up entirely of first lines, forty-nine beginnings.
"Forty-nine
Beginnings" it was called.
I
once met a young mother who had gone fishing
with
her two children. Coming up from the bottom
of
Lake Michigan, I got tangled up in their lines
And
they pulled me out and saved my life.
The
woman was my wife and the children were my children.
"Making
love, it's always as if it were happening
"For
the first time," I said after ten years of marriage.
"When
a woman chooses an amnesiac as her husband,
she
has to expect things like that," she laughed.
"Still,
there's a lot to be said
for
ten years of foreplay."
An
Instructor in Modern Poetry, I once lectured
For
four weeks as if each class was the first class
of
a new year. When the genial Chairman,
manifesting
polite alarm,
Visited
my classes, the occasion of his being there
gave
me the opportunity to teach
as
if those classes, too, were new classes.
Promoted,
given a raise, a bonus and a new two-year contract,
even
I was confused. Each class I taught became one
in
an infinite series of semesters, each semester
Lasting
no more than fifty minutes.
I
don't know about you, but I hardly unpack
and
get ready for this lifetime and it's time
To
move on to the next. I've been reincarnated three times,
and
am forty-nine years old and I don't even know my own name. History is just
one of those things
You
learn to live without. I live in a city
the
entire population of which is made up of amnesiacs
so
for the first time in three lifetimes I feel at home.
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