Forgetting to Remember by Linda McCullough

The backyard whited overnight,

now raindrops clink – dawn wants it worded: crinkle –

on the air conditioner a fugacious summer left to rust

there in the sunroom window. So much water wears

a person down, Rouses questions in the dullard mind.

Did rain souse manna in the wilderness?

Did Hebrew women lie with snoring men

to waken at the first drops on leather tent tops,

running out to harvest coriander hoarfrost

too soon soggy, steam-making baking,

charcoal carried through the Red Sea; fire scraped

from flint borrowed, sharply-witted, actually instructed,

from the next-door neighbor down in Egyptland,

neighbor/mother not passovered in the night,

neighbor/father never overpassed. That’s how it is:

surviving plague, winnowing, or holocaust, it’s a negation.

It is the not. Not being seen, not rescued. The unchosen.

You want to be invisible when darkness comes

to live till manna, to remember what has been received

at the Lord’s hand, back when life came with instructions:

blood on lintels, plundering, walking on dry land

to cross the sea.

Manna in the morning.

Do you want Quail with that? It's what's for dinner.

Roasted succulent, in a heartbeat, provision become food

for lamentation: “For this we left our onions, gave up garlic.

Seriously? Surrendered thrall our fathers practiced

a thousand years, to come here to eat frost, pluck feathers?”

Israel, giving whining a bad name.

The afternoon has found its way to evening now, the arsenic

hour been and gone. The kids eat mac and cheese, again, cat

kibble. The sun’s come out to set; from the kitchen window

light shows fields gone green. Snow never was, the morning

drench no matter. No one remembers the whole earth white

with grain, the heavens raining all that might sustain,

none recollect this morning’s April snow,

that reminiscent illustration. It reminds me of. . .

We imagine we remember. But I forget

if snow is soft or icy. Nothing but can be forgotten.

Moses will take heat tomorrow morning,

Israel to wail for water. God as never been.

Thirst like hunger having no recall.

Linda McCullough Moore is the author of two story collections, a novel, an essay collection and more than 350 shorter published works. She is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, as well as winner and finalist for numerous national awards. Her first story collection was endorsed by Alice Munro, and equally as joyous, she frequently hears from readers who write to say her work makes a difference in their lives. For many years she has mentored award-winning writers of fiction, poetry, and memoir. She is currently completing a novel, Time Out of Mind, and a collection of her poetry. www.lindamcculloughmoore.com