Trying to Retain My Sanity (With a Paper Cup)

I tried to make a paper cup and realized I'd forgotten how - how does one forget that? I unfolded the paper used it to write this poem (4/325 lockdown 1988 - we couldn't leave the barracks)

Trying to Retain My Sanity

(With a Paper Cup)

 

 

This, I’ll do I decide

and begin a paper cup like I made as a child.

And yet, paper laid before me with a few sharp, determined creases

crisscrossed across the surface,

the memory has, somehow, drifted beyond my touch.

 

And so I sit, for some uncertain reason,

considering the strength of my mind and soul,

trying to retain my sanity with a paper cup �"

But never quite remembering how I once made the folds.

 

David L. Carmichael

July 1988

 

 

Reviews

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. oh wow ... i salute your spirit ... and the sheer profundity in this brilliant poem of yours ...