My husband has lost his memory for most of yesterday’s 
events, things within the last week, things he now finds 

unnecessary or doesn’t want to remember. He can’t think 
about transgressions from loved ones, movie plots 

from last night, names of people he’s known most of his life. 
Each day is bright and new; each night he sleeps soundly and long, 

enjoying clean, cool sheets, the quiet of night, a darkened room. 
Meanwhile, the world goes on with him still here without a blip. 

I’m beginning to think he has the right idea, what does it mean 
or matter? Each day is another twenty-four hours laid to rest. 

We are well-fed, safe, warm and roofed, so what’s all the fuss 
about anyway? Does the idea we’ve become harmed spin 

from gossamer like cotton candy, clouds of doubt, 
suspicion formulating around a central cone of nothingness? 

Jamaicans say, “Finger never say, ‘look here’; him say, 
‘look yonder.’” So here at home, we look toward the next 

minute, the new day, evening’s rest, and the morrow. 
We are a proud people. Jamaican proverb warns us against 

pointing out little weaknesses when they say, “Peacock hide 
him foot when him hear ’bout him tail.” Lack of memory 

isn’t such a bad thing. Jamaicans say, “Be Happy! Be you!” 

Stellasue Lee

sees poems in emerging images poured in concrete, in grass growing. It all becomes poem worthy. She was a founding editor of Rattle, a poetry journal, and is now Editor Emerita. Two of her books have been entrants for the Pulitzer Prize: Firecracker Red and Crossing The Double Yellow Line. Her most recent collection is Queen of Jacks: new and selected poems (Bombshelter Press, 2019).

Her work has appeared in three additional volumes: After I Fall, a collection of four Los Angeles poets; Over To You, an exchange of poems with David Widup; and 13 Los Angeles Poets, the ONTHEBUS Poets Series Number One (Bombshelter Press). Her work has also been published in numerous literary journals, including Paterson Review, Connecticut Review, Margie, and The American Poetry Review.

Dr. Lee received her Ph.D. from Honolulu University and works privately with students all over the U.S. who are dedicated to learning how to write. In 2013, she won the grand prize Poetry to Aid from Humanity Al Falah in Malaysia. She wants you to know she was born in the year of the dragon.

Author’s website: https://www.stellasuelee.com/

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡Lying in a Darkened Room at Night Letting the Past Live Through Me, poem by Stellasue Lee in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022)

⚡Two Poems by Stellasue Lee in Verse-Virtual (February 2022): “All Saint’s Day” and “Broken Worlds”

⚡A Ferocity of Mind Lives Here in Silence, poem in MacQ (Issue 6, January 2021)