Muldoon, Paul: Gone

Since one of our functions is to forget
the smell of an apple-cannery,
talcumed catkins,
the forked

twig astounding itself as a catapult,
the subcutaneous
freckle on a cue-ball,
the story of O. Henry,

what should we make of that couple
we never quite became,
both turning up one lunch-hour

in an auction-room
to bid, unwittingly, against each other
for the set of Viennese goblets?