M. A. Glen

“M"Mnemosyne’s silent M drives me to the dictionaryHer baby sister makes an n run. Youth does not tarryThose diaphanous, luminescent water jellies, Mnemiopsis,small as sneezes, I can only conjure as Knee me up, SisSpelling? Easier to recall these beauties as invasivecarnivorous, cannibalistic, and hermaphroditic (They eat each other and fuck themselves)Mnemonic is a device that helps me rememberbirthdays and phone numbersof those I no longer love but can recall in tracesOr how to sequence pi to a thousand placesas Guinness names me a mnemonist. Ormy own birthday because my mother died the day beforeJust a handful of words end in mn, and the soul they limn:autumn, solemn, damn, condemn, the a capella hymnBut hundreds contain mn. A standout: that Jurassic cephalopod,belemnite, long gone, yet its name and phallic fossil live onAnd should those Siamnese twins stand at the head, they’re ledby a vowel that takes m by the hand and leaves n to bedanother syllable. Amnesia. You are what you forgetStill, the mother of all muses has a name hard to setMnemiopsis, mnemonist, mnemonic, Mnemosyne”

“I’m living an “a-ticket” dream. That’s the ticket you would need back then for something lame, like riding the trolley, walking through the staircases of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, or sitting in the theater to watch an Abraham Lincoln robot put you to sleep. Four snores and seven years ago.””