Sometimes Creek

I used to have a memory, just one, of my father before the polio when he could walk. I started to write about it and in the writing realized it was gone.

I've a memory of a memory. I can recall the content and the emotions involved, but can no longer bring it to mind and see it again.

Do they just flicker out or grow nova-like expanding with dying energy to implode into nothing? One too many beers or an oxygen shortage caused by chain smoking killed that one I guess and its loss spurred me to inventory what remains.

I can't remember my first wife's left breast. I do have a general idea of the kind of breast it was within a certain class of breasts; not too large but, quite large really. She was a dancer with a wide-shouldered, athletic build and this made her breasts seem smaller than they actually were. She was a virgin when we married and I can't remember the look on her face when I first bulled past her vulva, nor can I remember exactly why I married her.

I can't remember my son's first step, but I still carry my great grandfather witdh me though he died when I was small, not long after my father's career as a biped ended. He still comes to mind sitting in his chair smoking a pipe and chewing tobacco simultaneously, a spit can at his feet, my great grandmother hovering like some benevolent harpy brushing errant coals off of his shirt.