---

Amnesia

by Brent Goodman

---

Suddenly he's shot back
to the 14th century, the world
easy and flat, great ships
slipping off the edge--what month,
who's this, where do you live?
The horizon closer than anyone,
even those literate, would have imagined.
All day after the fall he explores the house
with his bandaged mast and shirt tails
billowing, every cluttered countertop
an unfriendly nation. What to make
of this faded receipt, this postcard,
names of his children shocked thin
and indiscernible. Pictures will do no good,
unpacked and held steady before him.
Let him stand alone, now in the family room,
now out on the back deck--let him stand alone
as night surrounds the house with its fathoms
of dark. If he could remember his god,
maybe he'd pray, a god so distant now
it must appear as only the smallest light
above him, a dim star among thousands,
difficult to navigate by.

---

......................



All contents copyright © 1996, The Blue Moon Review, All Rights Reserved.