The Body Forgets in Order

The kid dropped a shoe.

Just let it fall from maybe fifteen feet,

then climbed down after it

without thinking—hand over hand,

pulled the shoe on,

went right back up.

I watched from the kitchen window,

both hands flat on the counter,

the glass a little fogged

from the kettle still on the burner.

I was trying to remember

the last time I climbed a tree.

Not approximately.

An actual year.

I can't find one.

Somewhere in my twenties

it stopped being a thing I did

and I didn't mark the exit,

didn't say goodbye to the hands

that knew how to read bark,

that knew where to put their weight.

The kid was up in the oak again,

one leg swung over a branch

with the ease of someone

who hasn't learned yet

that the body catalogs its losses quietly,

files them where you only find them

by accident—

standing at a window

with your hands on a cold counter,

watching someone else

be fluent in something you forgot you lost.