THREE POEMS
by Mark Cunningham
NORTH AMERICA NEBULA
The temperature in my kitchen is 41. I counted: there are eleven days I would live over again with no moment changed. Maybe a month's worth, with a stretch here and a niggle there. I check shop windows to see if my hair is lying too flat on top. If I talk to someone, I think of what complaints she can make later. Once, when I was sitting in a bar, a cockroach ran across the table and I could not be sure I hadn't brought it in with me. Every time I take trash to the dumpster, I commit a misdemeanor. It's rare for me to find a dead mouse in the sink, usually only one each winter. If I talk to someone, I think of how in a week he will have no recollection of what we said. I keep a night light on. When the phone rings, it takes two seconds from my life instead of one. Now and then I pick up the receiver to hear if there's still a dial tone. Somewhere, someone envies me.
HORSEHEAD NEBULA
The dehumidifier rattled like a crippled 747 wobbling for an emergency landing. Myra said the receipt was in my billfold. I looked in the receipt drawer, then on the kitchen table. Then I found it in my billfold. I almost stopped myself from reminding her of the time she thought she could make mashed potatoes in the blender, but I didn't quite. I've heard that what brings people together is not global initiatives, but something superficial, like a dirty joke. And what could be more human than fouling up? I don't care what your rank is in the North Korean Army, we will agree pretty quickly that the day is more peaceful if you don't take a sip of Heather Parham's coffee without asking. But I'll be telling Frank about how I was in front of Tower Records kicking my foot in the grass like an enraged chicken so I could get some sticky glop off the sole of my Adidas when I saw my pants were unzipped, too, and I'll notice he's crossed his arms--he's bored. The father in Visitor Q said it: the mysteries of life are amazing. I'm a little more human.
BETELGEUSE
Wittgenstein thought that death was not part of life. I've come up with an idea, too: forgetting is not part of memory. I can't do research to find out what it is, though, because if I did a successful experiment, I'd forget to note the results; if the experiment was a big hit, I'd forget that I'd done it. That's what philosophy has lead to--that, and disclaiming all responsibility for our acts. As Slavoj Zizek writes, "the problem with our post-historical era is not that we cannot remember the past, our history proper (there are more than enough narratives of that), but that we cannot remember the present itself." All those reminders from mystics and commercials to be here now are necessary, since apparently I'm not. I can name the starting five for the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers, but I can't remember Chris's phone number to call and tell him. I've done a lot of research here. I've tried to make a good narrative of forgetfulness. If I've plagiarized someone else's ideas, if I've neglected to give proper credit, forgive me. I had nothing to do with it.
