Forgetting

Memory is a bathrobe pulled over
her arm and caught between a knob
of elbow and slope of shoulder.
It waits for the body's complete action
to swing her around and stop-
these hands pulling tight
to knot it into place.

Tangent! I love you!

I really liked this poem, though I had to stare at it for a bit for it to make sense to me. What can I say? I don't really use bathrobes, so it was really hard for me to visualize!

One thing that I'm still a little confused about is what is the body's complete action. I don't really see what the body is doing in this case. Also, I got a little confused about the hands pulling tight to knot in place whether you were talking about the hands or the bathrobe. But again, I might just be confused because I'm really not used to any bathrobes!

Anyway, that's my comment! I'm sorry it's a bit useless, but here's to many more helpful comments to your piece! <3

I really like this. The length of your lines are very odd and it added something. It reminded me of missing the motions my grandma made when she first died. Like the way she curled her hair in the morning and did her make-up. So if that is what you were going for you did a great job. Like Snoink said I had to read it a few times over to get the right image of her movements. I still don't really get the the part where you say it is caught between the knob of her elbow and the slope of her shoulder. I don't get how that would work.

Thanks for the good read,

A. S.

Short and sweet, just the way a pocket poem is meant to be. And it encompasses a whole lifetime within it, within the single metaphor -- very Ted Kooser-ish. I like how utterly daring this is in all its two-lined glory -- so rare to see short poetry, and poetry done so well when short.

Memory is a bathrobe pulled over
her thin-veined arm and caught
between a knob of elbow and slope
of shoulder.

First line was great. Generally if you have me on the first line, you have my attention undivided. The directness of the metaphor 'memory is a bathrobe,' coupled with the weirdness of it, the originality of it, and even the relative quietness of the line as a whole made for a very nice effect: firm, but gentle, intellectual without flaunting; sentimental.

But 'thin-veined' -- I think the line works better without it. What 'thin-veined' essentially conveys is her age. But 'knob' does that well enough, I think, so it would be alright to remove this. It would just flow more seamlessly without those two words.

It waits for the body's complete
action to swing her around and stop-
these hands pulling tight
to knot in place.

Good. Especially hyphenating the 'stop', for pause. And it leaves us thinking about what has actually been knotted, and what has not.

Thanks for the read, Penguin. I missed your writing.



Navi

Short and compact, I like it. Which is quite the compliment since I'm usually all 'nooo, it doesn't say enough!' with short poetry. I think you could have made this pack a little more punch though:

Memory is a bathrobe pulled over
her arm and caught between a knob
of elbow and slope of shoulder. <<< Okay so I like the simplicity of the wording here, it makes it sound very matter of fact. Like one of those sentences you find in your old text books or the how to ones. However, the image is an odd one. Personally, I don't pull my bathrobe over my arm like that so it's strange to think through that in my head and then pair it to memory which is one of those vague things. And when you're dealing with vague things that don't really have images of their own and trying to give them form, it's best to either go with multiple metaphors or to choose one that's really solid and really accessible. If that makes sense at all?
It waits for the body's complete action <<< I agree that complete isn't enough. It doesn't really describe anything and I think you could find a better word.
to swing her around and stop-
these hands pulling tight
to knot it into place. <<< Love the idea of memory being knotted into place as that really works. It can pull loose on its own or you can try to untie it and you can tie new memories but they also develop by themselves through the tangles of our lives. Very nice.