On the Urge to Mark the Days as Significant

On the Urge to Mark the Days as Significant

“You're so beautiful," said Alice. "I'm afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are."  

Still Alice 
Lisa Genova

Maybe we say we’ll mark them 

to remember them

because we’re afraid

of forgetting them or
maybe we're afraid of saying

they had no significance 

or relevance and so we make

a game of it: Birth            Day

anniversary         Death                    Day

anniversary        we say I’ll say

remember how I could

ever forget and as soon

as that it’s a two fish rainbow

trout maybe

that swim by in my mind if I

hadn’t sung
happy birthday
for my son
or the prayer of st.
francis for my mum

If I hadn’t made

a cake and this year

two old vinyl records

and a Bob Ross Happy Tree

T-shirt  or if I hadn't climbed
into your bed the day
my mum died
to commemorate

maybe it would be just another

day just

a place of space

to walk through and into

November to listen
in the quiet because maybe 

it’s my way to fend off

the bears that wait

to rappel 

my memory who stay

open mouthed at

the rapids during

the salmon spawn

that drip millions and millions

of eggs down their chins

fish who will never know to be a fish,

a fish! never just the milt

never just the cold current

who won’t be

gill

or fin

or flesh

I say listen

I commemorate everything

that’s come to stay
a little while

that with all this
resistance grows

that was once so sick

that was dying

from the beginning

that pulled through

to come all this way: son,

I mark you

every year I mark you

I never want to for-

get

I never want to not

though it’s glass

sometimes, cut from

Budweiser brown

fallen to the ground

after the accident…but no

not that anniversary today

not that one

only you only going in to have you
to have to let you go

alone into a nobody would know what

pain that snaked away inside of you

to kill you

oh but it was long ago

it was so

those bears

look

if I don’t look they won’t look

but look

but don’t

walk away from the banks

it’s not yet time

it’s time

it’s not yet time

what day is it let me mark it

I need to mark it

why do I need to mark it?