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The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted   
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

https://mass.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/pe11.rla.genre.poetry.collforget/forgetfulness-by-billy-collins

When his boat snapped loose
from its mooring, under
the screaking of the gulls,
he tried at first to wave
to his dear ones on shore,
but in the rolling fog
they had already lost their faces.
Too tired even to choose
between jumping and calling,
somehow he felt absolved and free
of his burdens, those mottoes
stamped on his name-tag:
conscience, ambition, and all
that caring.
He was content to lie down
with the family ghosts
in the slop of his cradle,
buffeted by the storm,
endlessly drifting.
Peace! Peace!
To be rocked by the Infinite!
As if it didn’t matter
which way was home;
as if he didn’t know
he loved the earth so much
he wanted to stay forever.

If a jar of jelly is $2.98
& a loaf of Hawaiian bread is $4
Then how much bail money will I need when I kill everyone in my house
for eating all the bread
and jelly in 5 minutes?

Black Momma Math
If Black Momma has a two 17-year-old Black Boys
What is the probability that they will come home in a body bag in the next 5 years?
If Son A leaves Ferguson at 3pm traveling at 60 miles per hour and Son B leaves Baltimore at 5pm traveling at 50 miles per hour
to drive to Florida,
what time and which morgue
will their bodies be delivered to 
when their music and Black Boy Joy inspire a stand your ground tango?
Better yet,
what is the cost of a funeral times 2 if a police officer pulls them over?
If 6 out of 10 people have math anxiety,
Then how many Black women out of 10 have murdered baby anxiety?

Everyone says Black women can’t math
But we have been Black Momma mathing since the beginning of time
They have been long divisioning us since Africa become too valuable to keep as a whole
We’ve been reduced like fractions
Told we’re not equivalent 
Compared to and found wanting against each other
even though we have the same common denominator
We get broken down like quadratic equations
Our squared roots have been cut in half
Our ancestral variables are left unknown
We’re always solving for the y
If distance equals rates times time
And the rate of Blacks killed by cops is 9x more than everyone else
Then how distant are we from legalized lynching?

Black women are educated 
But being Black Momma provides a more specialized education
Black Momma Philosophy
If I let my son play outside with a toy gun and there are no news camera around to see it,
when the police shoot him
is it murder or self-defense? 
We already know which harsh truths everyone ignores until someone not Black validates us
Is it possible that some people are just genetically predisposed to hate?
How free is our will if our fate is decided by our melanin
What is the meaning of Black lives when so many people don’t think we matter?

Black Momma Math
If a jar of jelly is $2.98
& a loaf of Hawaiian bread is $4
But I’m too scared to let my babies go to the grocery store
What is the probability that I am just delaying the inevitable? 

I often felt I could recite the Gettysburg Address
in the time he took to get past the K in kettle,
as he tried to tell me he’d like to make
a pot of tea, and then there was the T,
that sharp slice of a sound that sat stubbornly
stuck behind his two front teeth as he
tried to expel it and get to the “E.”
As I watched and listened to his struggle,
I realized it was my struggle too.
I was desperate to finish that word he was working.
I fought to quell the impatience inside me,
but in honesty, I wanted to flee.
I never asked myself 
what those few extra seconds cost me.
Every impatient moment
shreds a small piece of my sense of compassion.
Every judgmental reaction to him is a judgment of myself.
So while he struggles to overcome his stut-t-t-t-t-er,
I grasp for the better part of myself
to block the scratch of irri-t-t-t-t-tion
that crawls into my throat,
that makes my breath want to sigh
I assess.
How many seconds is empathy worth?

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

I talked to a lady yesterday
She didn’t know my name
She was amazed to hear about my past
and the places I had been
Her daughter’s life so similar
filled her with awe and fear
She looked at me bewildered
could this really be real? 

We talked about her family
We talked about her past
We talked about the folk she’d known
Their walk their talk their cheer
The ones who floated through her world
And those who stopped to share
We talked about the future
her hopes her dreams her fears

We talked about her sorrows
All the sadness life threw in
We talked about her children –
(Some things I shouldn’t hear!)
We giggled and cried and laughed
at a life so rich so full
And in a moment shared
sat in silence with our thoughts …
And I whispered “Goodnight Mother”
as her eyes succumbed to dreams.