Remembering The Forgotten

Augmentin, that's what she said, but what she prescribed
was Amoxicillin. I had forgotten they were the same
and spent a few hours in the night trying to remember
if they were, everyone else long since asleep.

I didn't turn the light on, didn't come to the computer
to look up broad-spectrum antibiotics, didn't let myself
open the dictionary next to the bed. I lay there awake,
going through the days and nights I once administered

medicines, wondering how I could ever forget a part
of me who worked every day where lives hung
in the balance, where the difference in 1.5 and 1.05
was life or death, my head hurting and my mind furious

with itself for all its failings, for all the times it remembers
the things I'd rather forget. The next forgotten word was Spirea,
only thinking about it hours after ridding the garden beds
of their winter collections. I stood at the window admiring

the work I had done all day, garden beds cleared of weeds
and refuge, but I could not summon, with all of my powers,
the name of that shrub I planted one hot summer, long past
planting time, knowing if I didn't water it daily, I could lose

it. There are so many losses one grows weary of the tally.
But what joy when the mind reveals all its little secrets,
when the red knees hidden beneath dirt-stained pants
is cause for wonder, when the right arm throbs and the ache

of living is finally and utterly something to embrace.

***********************

This guy on one of the gardening channels said

You don't want your yard looking like a big box
of crayons just exploded on it

Huh? Hell yes I do! Give me color everywhere!
If only I could drop a big box of crayons and have all
those lovely colors everywhere I look.

What an idiot.