Ashley-Elizabeth Best
Disordered Memory
Memories are autonomy,
the acquisition of habits—
habits remember the contents
of memory.
Memory belongs to a
single thinking thing  thing.
Disorientation in time:
the universe seems to stop
when the illness begins,
you will not be aware of
having aged since.
The unavailability of memories
is a failure, a death sentence,
secrecy appears in everything,
the hiddenness of a thought
in the dark, happiness and a
blank mind.
I contemplate the principles
of visible things when my
mother mistook a stone for
a grape. She spit the stone
and half a tooth on the ground
and asked why the earth did not
open to receive it.
I look off to the left, roads are
such a crude gouge, I speak
to my mother, our winter walk
is over, but the distance is too
much, she cannot hear what I say,
instead laughs at the crusted sky,
lifts snow off the ground, presses
it to her full face.
These are very beautiful. Don’t let ENGL @ Queens change you.