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# Forgetfulness
- URL: https://poetry101.love/forgetfulness/
- Published: 2023-08-01T16:49:00.000Z
- Updated: 2023-08-01T16:49:00.000Z
- Description: by Billy Collins
- Author: Melissa Anderson
- Tags: Billy Collins, #Import 2026-11-04 19:11

The name of the author is the first to go  
followed obediently by the title, the plot,  
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel  
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,  
  
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor  
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,  
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.  
  
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye  
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,  
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,  
  
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,  
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.  
  
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,  
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue  
or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.  
  
It has floated away down a dark mythological river  
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall  
  
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those  
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.  
  
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night  
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.  
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted   
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

---

Collins, Billy. [Questions About Angels](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Questions%5FAbout%5FAngels/RZnaAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&kptab=getbook&ref=poetry101.love). United States, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013.