Andrés Alfaro

Who will remember?

I think my problem is that I empathize too much
Your stomach hurt so I kissed it relentlessly;
But then we forgot.
My mother cried so I was her shoulder
Her eternal fire and infinite boulder,
but then we forgot.

My sister labored while I carved bricks
and her puffed cheeks and sweaty eyebrows
showed me what a memory could aspire toward,
but then we forgot.

My father walked across a river,
Neck deep, but he still wore a tie,
And nobody recalls.

I sit and wonder,
with gumstick unchewed,
Who will remember?