Challenging Poetry

forgetting to remember

I finished a thought
and tucked it away
in the back of my jeans
with an old ticket stub
from a play I watched,
a penny from the year
I was born, and the smell
of bubblegum from the
toy store where I first worked—
it made friends
and began to sing,
and when I found it again
on laundry day (the smell
of fabric softener, the sound
of a jet engine, revving
for take-off) I opened it
again and heard the
sweet ache of memory
whisper away, taking
the thought with it,
leaving this poem
instead.