In which rooms do we put what we can't stand to remember?
       

In his memory palace, Matteo Ricci
      kept his rooms spacious and clean
            so he could locate what they held
easily in his mind.

To forget, you crowd yours instead,

      mound what you want gone
            like the dead heaped one on top of another,
none of them marked by a stone.

No signposts like Ricci's
      two warriors locked in combat
            or the women he stationed in corners—northeast,
southwest.

Create a blueprint, he taught, so you never get lost
      in your thoughts.

            But when you feel you might lose your mind
by retracing your steps—

what came first, what happened next,
      the worst—
            you open your rooms to rain
and the blinding sun,

bid grief goodbye,
      chaff for a breeze.

            Bring it on, even a twister, you cry,
to be free of what is inside.

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Copyright © 2015 Allison Funk All rights reserved
from Wonder Rooms
Parlor Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission