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- Strasbourg
-
- Reading A. R. Ammons I come
- across a reference to Salzburg
- so my mind clicks in with Mozart
- but at the same time I think of
- another city with a name
- I always confuse with Salzburg.
- I know these places are miles apart
- yet both near the German border.
- One is in Austria, the other
- in eastern France, I do remember,
- where I bought a vase in a carpark
- shadowed by a cathedral,
- from a charming black hustler
- who told me to name my own price
- when I refused, at first, to buy it.
- Because I hardly had any money left
- I named an insulting (I thought) figure
- that he, a triumph of teeth, accepted,
- leaving me almost broke but owning
- a vase on a car roof, a vase
- I still have, that leaks water,
- a vase from a time I love,
- but my brain stops at that city’s name.
- I just think ‘Salzburg’ knowing
- this is wrong. I know where Salzburg is.
- I am not stupid but I am
- forgetful, so much so that
- I do my alphabet system.
- I start with ‘S’ and think
‘Sa’,
- ‘Sc’, etcetera, hoping to jar my
memory.
- I am uneasy about Alzheimer’s.
- Alzheimer’s, Ammons, Austria.
- The vase is ornate, African,
- I like to believe. I could pull out my
- drawerful of maps, kept since
- those days when I was a traveller
- when I could buy a worthless vase
- with my last francs, when
- I never forgot anything.
- There is always that
possibility.
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