What You Sound Like to Yourself

There was a thing from childhood

You wanted to remember,

Remember? That’s what you said.

Have you remembered it yet?

You mentioned a recording,

How your own voice bothered you.

It’s a common enough thing.

Do people who hear themselves

Played back daily get thick-skinned,

Or does it still bother them?

No, not that? You said something

Was on the tip of your tongue,

A memory as exact

As the name of the woman

Who greeted you on a trail

In the mountains, by your name,

While you pretended delight,

Asking her, What brings you here?

Without a clue who she was.

Later, you almost had it,

But no, that was someone else.