He ate forgetful
of short, impoverished hills;
wool-filthy rivers; metallic, undrinkable springs;

ate oblivious
to how much he’d wanted to
escape milltowns, rotted

cities, abandoned farms;
ate ravenously, ate dumb
to the irony of how while growing up

he’d longed for anything
other than this
coffee milk, these stuffies,

this knife-blade-gray chowder;
ate to fill the hole
left by the demolition

of his grandmother’s house;
ate Haven Brothers’ grease
and bizarre New York System

wieners as if they were
manna, as if somewhere
in those mysterious meats

was a potion, and the potion
was corrective, and the correction
was selective amnesia, and

selective, stomach-borne amnesia
could erase his stone-dead memories
and leave only the blooming good times behind.