Willa Cather wrote that the poem arrives like the storm, and she would rush for her pen
For me, they leave just as suddenly
Those I have committed to the page are strangers when I encounter them
recognizable by me as my own work -- who else could know these details? --
Yet entirely foreign
Like the woman at Tara's wedding
Who insisted we'd met
"you were starting a farm near frederick"
Indeed, that must have been me
"You don't remember? My dog peed on your foot!"
The memories float in through the Lyme haze
As if a scene from a movie I watched once
Halfway, dozing, there is the faintest glimmer
of recognition.
