(Shadrina Izzati/Unsplash)

I could write “I remember” and
  go on from there, except
     often what I remember

dries up like sheen on pebbles
  so what about what I don’t
     remember? There’s more

there, like when the bay drains
  and mudflats sink, sending up
     gulls that scan nothing

you can see and eat what isn’t
  there, far as you can tell, which
     leaves a lot to brains clogged

with microplastics trying to make
  sense of estuary lace, echelons
     rolling in like thoughts until

smashing against the harbor wall
  as if for the first time near where
     I’d watched the old Chinese lady

gather ginkgo nuts and tell me they
  were “brain fruit” good
     for memory and good to eat too.

Brian Swann’s most recent poetry collection is Imago (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023), and his latest fiction is Ya-Honk! Goes the Wild Gander (MadHat Press, 2024). He is professor emeritus of humanities at Cooper Union in New York City.

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Published in the January 2026 issue: View Contents