forgotten

i won’t forget you, i shouldn’t think.

although your birthday’s slipped my mind,

since culling facebook this past spring.

and i’m sorry that i locked you in

that anecdote— cut adrift from your name

and circumstance, for the saving of a second

or two in new company.

and i still find a trace of you

in a once-buried, thoughtless turn of phrase—

a story dropped someplace in the divide

that i’d sooner ignore than cross.

and i’m still drafting that apology, indefinitely,

in part for things i recall that i said,

but more for the things i don’t.

because i fear the ugly shadow that

the worst of me could cast.

but most of all i hate the end, where i’m

a ripple lost to the tempered sea,

because hidden in the promise that i won’t forget

is the hope that you still remember