Memento (for Mitch)

This is for the one
who showed me where the daisies grow
beneath the overpass by the brewery.

This is for him,
because otherwise I might still be lost in B. Dalton,
in search of blank books to write dreams in.

I dedicate this to the one
who threatened to leave me at McDonald’s
unless I ate an ice cream cone so he could imagine what would come later.

In case he doesn’t remember
why I remember him,
even after all the beers we shared,
sitting in open windows,
high above Grand Avenue on hot summer nights,
this is so he won’t forget
what he taught me about life
while we spied on the city from ten stories up
and his roommate spied on us through the keyhole.

And on the off chance that this is the one
who has forgotten my name,
I take it all back.