Memory Talent

Overheard: Mother and her two kids, a girl about 8 and a boy about 5.

Mom: Will you remember two things for me?

Daughter: Yes! I have memory talent.

Mom: Apple sauce and grass seed.

Where it took me: I loved the phrase ‘memory talent.’ I’ve tried for a while to work it into a poem but so far, it’s not coming. As for memory, although I have a good one, I find more and more that I can’t keep hold of details in my mind. So that topic interests me. But I still needed a way to get into this poem. I searched online for poems about remembering things and found one called Failing Memory. The plan was to write lines in response to its lines. Instead, its first line ‘As the potato grows’ led me to begin with ‘Grass seed,’ and the poem took off from there.