Pages torn out of a diary - a poem

 

pages torn out of a diary

 

My memory is like pages torn out of a diary.

Pages without dates. Unnumbered.

The events are there. The people.

Only the date is missing.

Like the day I asked by girlfriend to marry me.

It was a Saturday in May. We were at a wedding.

I remember it as Derby day. May 5.

In my tuxedo, I watched the race on the bed while she dressed.

The year Secretariat won the triple crown.

Or was it May 20, and I watched the Preakness?  

How can I know?

The wedding couple are divorced.

The girl and I broke it off before it was too late.

Now, we don’t talk.

No one cares, except me.

I guess it doesn’t matter.

A partial memory is better than none.

At least, I know the year, 1973.

Wait. I forgot about Google and Ancestry.

The wedding announcement in Newspapers.com says, May 12.

Now I have the date right. The page is numbered.

However, there was no race to watch.

Have pages have become faded. The writing, in parts, ineligible.

Knowing the truth, should I continue to tell the story as remembered?

Why not, diaries are like that.