In Honor of Negative Space

In Honor of Negative Space

Today newscasters declared that most places

have been lost to the core of the earth and most

floors have now disintegrated into the finer points

of my hippocampus and most months have been

reborn as salt pillars standing like monuments

in the desert and now I remember only

the boba tea storefront and the section

where its insides should be

missing and replaced

with constellations of static

though I know I had my first date there

and as far as I know it did not involve

any sort of outer space travel and

I drove for the first time in the Valley

of the Gods where the road ends in

the scaffolded clouds of a monsoon

and now I keep driving into the dead-end stop

of my memory although I know that somewhere

logically there has to be somewhere

all these truths have laid down to rest I’m also

pretty sure they have actually degraded

to their basest elements that they are now

atoms of raw memory-stuff whizzing

electro- neuro- whatever-stuff all this

free space this cleared Bingo card

and although some would consider this a

cognitive or cosmic injustice I mean I get it

but I believe well I always want to say

forgetting is not hostile it is just a gentle wind

coaxing memories loose from the cliffs a quiet

and careful chisel shaping spiraled cavities

where the ancient bits smile as they

shake themselves free from the monolith

and my new skin slumbers

awaiting its chance to become old