Phone Booths

Was the past, in fact, the past
You remember, any past,
Ever really there? You know

Your memory’s imprecise.
You know history’s partial
To winners and subjected

To contentious revision
And partisan erasures.
You know fossils are fossils

And fantasists are stubborn.
Hallucinatory dreams
Mess with memory nightly.

You wake up in a strange bed
Remembering that one time
You ran away as a teen—

What the train stations were like,
The pay phone booths, the night air
In the capital city,

And it’s not quite you believe
That the distinction between
Unreal and real really holds,

But you find it hard to feel
That the worlds you remember
Ever were whole worlds at all.