Today’s poem

FORGETFULNESS!

I should have been at work this morning, but I got confused. My boss sent me a worried text — she sounded quite bemused. I can’t explain what happened, my head is full of mince. I’m getting worse as I get older, just like Uncle Vince.

There’s lots of other things I do, I hope you can relate, Leaving doors unlocked, forgetting when I have a date. Sometimes I write down messages before I go to bed Because at some point through the night, stuff falls out of my head.

I have the Glasgow Memory Clinic’s number on speed dial, But I haven’t called them, though I’ve meant to for a while. Forgetting people’s birthdays, too, I do that quite a lot, Even when, the week before, the card and present’s bought.

Then when I remember and I try to make amends I don’t know where I put the gifts. Oh dear! It never ends. And what about, when I am up the town and I hear ‘Hi!’ It’s someone that I know and they’re familiar to my eye.

My brain, though, can’t recall their name, it just has no idea, They might be called Patricia, Ann, Rebecca or Maria. And so I’m left there standing, while they chat about the weather All I’m thinking: ‘What’s your name? I’ve known you... like . . . for ever!’

I wrote this poem when these thoughts were forming in my head, Although the time was 3am and I was in my bed. If I had not put pen to paper in the dead of night Forgetfulness would mean that I had nothing left to write!

Margaret Healy, Dunfermline, fife.