In time we won't have memories. I'll forget then

the easy grace with which I learned the things I still half know,

Of how I read across across the pages of absorptive skill,

That my hands could change an engine, my body swim,

Sleek and strong, against and up a current.

When I forget they'll be gone. No funeral

For the gifts I've given up.

We create ourselves by what we must forgo.

Memory begets children.

I am thusly barren.