New Orleans

  I blame myself that I can’t find them,
  can remember the configuration of a room
  but not the faces inside it.
  Names are as irretrievable
  as band practice fingerings.
  I let them go without realizing
  how completely they’d disappear.

  A girl I’d known in Raleigh
  hooked her arm through mine as we passed
  in Boston. She’s gone, too.
  We took that encounter in stride.
  If my assailant should see me
  by some miracle here on Magazine
  I may not get a second glance.