Unfamiliar

Never imagined
that my memory could
disappear, but it is. The letters of words
are themselves becoming new.

Definitions seem fresh again —
you ask me for a memory of you
that makes me smile — what is a smile?
Those letters are unfamiliar.

I’m not even sure how I’m writing this.
Muscle-habit, maybe; the gross framing
of my body doing a better job
of it than my brain can now.

My world that has depended
on my being certain of what I already know
is turning into smoke so much of the time.
It’s fine. I’ll slip into a sea of forgetting;

I’ll be fine there.