I do not think
my mind will hold

out much longer.
I forget basic

details of conversations. I
walk into the kitchen

and forget my reason
for having walked

into the kitchen. I can
discern now when

people are being
polite by not

mentioning the fact that
it is the third

or fourth time I've
told that story again.

I am thirty-four
years of age.

Thirty-four
years of age. Thirty-

four years
of age.

I love baseball perhaps
now more than

ever before. It
requires no

memory, no cohesive
narrative, each

moment when the
pitcher releases the

ball its own
microcosm—

its own tick
in an atemporal clockwork

flush with gears but
lacking cogs entirely,

a moment savored
and then quickly

forgotten, like
the taste of a

perfectly ripe summer
strawberry, smothered

by the sweltering haze
of a mid-July afternoon.