Death Is Just Another Forgetting Poem by Patti Masterman

Listen- listen- I need you to do this one thing for me.
I really, really do. Just listen for now:
Do you remember being a child, when we were children-
the recesses on the red dirt field, it was me and you,
and sometimes the boy- he was a nerdy boy, with thick black glasses,
but even though he was a boy- we could forgive him that,
because he was really good at playing pretend with us.

Can you remember reading from our bibles, the Psalms;
the little red bibles we got in vacation bible school-
we used to recite the Psalm-poetry to each other,
as we sat in the little yellow metal barrels, curled up together,
and we talked about the Princess stories,
and when we found a stick, it became Lina,
the lizard creature in the story; that stick
must have stayed around for months, and remember
how I would always say, with great relief; oh there's Lina,
and then we would both hug the stick.

And we played witches and warlocks around the gnarly old tree,
it's ancient trunk as thick as four men at least, and it formed a natural bowl
made of it's huge roots, where we threw acorns and young grasses
and pretended we were cooking in a cauldron;
a stew or a magic spell, as the mood struck us,
and we worked out good and evil,
in our little drama plays; all of us changing sides;
wicked for angelic, one week
and good for bad, the next, so no one had to be the bad guy all the time
and we played house in invisible rooms that ranged about the tree,
it was the central hearth of our imaginations.
When we got tired sometimes, I would make up scary stories for us instead,
but the boy’s attention would always flag before I could finish.

And your legs grew long, and your freckles became
like little spots of sand from the beach.
You had a speech impediment, and a few kids made fun of you,
which always made me angry, and your mama had died
when you were just a little baby, which I thought had traumatized you,
and your eyes were the palest ice-blue, so I thought you must be a mermaid;
an orphaned mermaid- still with the sea in her eyes,
come from the depths to save me, with your hair so black-
like the blackest seaweed you could ever imagine,
but skin white like a mermaid from milky depths,
where no beach sun could ever, ever reach.

And once you wrote a note to me, and I saved it forever;
and it said that we should say only kind things, forever and ever,
the rest of our days, and everything would work out fine for us.
And I can still see your back get smaller, as you walked home after playing.

And I met you again in high school, years later,
but you had forgotten me; you had forgotten everything.
You were a ballerina then, and could stand high on your toes,
and you walked around on your toes all the time,
practicing when you weren’t in class.

So tell me if you can remember any of this, it's very important.
Let me know if this rings a bell; I need to know-
Because the fate of an entire world hangs on it-
The fate of us- the fate of everything we were,
And whatever we have become now, because of that other world-
Tell me you remember it all now.
Please.