Peeling Potatoes in Puerto Vallarta
       

I used to remember everything.
I could see pages from books
in my mind but now it's all a blur
& words I've looked up an hour ago

mean nothing to me.
C'est une lapalissade de dire que
je vieillis: It's stating the obvious
to say that I'm getting old. Today,

walking the dog, I pretended
I was thirty, the dog my dog then, black,
not blonde as she is, & for a while
it worked, I forgot myself, but why

leave the body now when every minute
should count, every breath, & we know
this is how we should be living—yet
groceries, laundry, floors that need

mopping—who wants to attend
to all that with full consciousness?
It's supposed to be spiritual to peel
potatoes if what you're doing is

peeling potatoes, in the moment,
as they say, but why not be elsewhere,
frolicking in the sun, your body lithe,
your memory whole again & every bit thirty?

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Copyright © 2020 Lynne Knight All rights reserved
from Rattle
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission