Memory
By Donna Pucciani
My earliest memory
is talking baby-talk with my twin
about our yellow stuffed rabbits,
and her “riding” her crib next to mine
for nocturnal meetings that would later
panic our parents, finding us in the same crib
next morning, chattering away.
Our conversations planted
memory in our past like an exotic
flower, blooming continually
and forever.
When does memory root itself
in the soil of childhood,
taking hold of the years
like an invasive species? And why
does it leave us when it does,
sometimes far too early,
a random casualty of aging?
A friend in England
has begun to forget, as if to balance
babyhood’s linguistic adventure,
the invention of memory,
with a gradual senility.
To live in the present
is a gift, but unwelcome
when one cannot recall a name,
a face, the clock striking the hour,
or one’s own visage, slowly fading
into the wrinkled petals of time.
Donna Pucciani’s poetry has been been published in diverse journals such as International Poetry Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, The Pedestal, Poetry Salzburg, Shichao Poetry, Istanbul Literary Review and Christianity and Literature. Her poetry has been translated into Chinese, Japanese and Italian, and has won awards from the Illinois Arts Council and The National Federation of State Poetry Societies, among others. She has been nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize and currently serves as Vice-President of the Poets’ Club of Chicago. She has authored several poetry collections such as Edges (2016), Ghost Garden (2016) A Light Dusting of Breath (2015), Hanging Like Hope on the Equinox (2013),To Sip Darjeeling at Dawn (2011) among others.