The Mnemonist and the Fatehead
by Daniel Plate

  1. The mnemonist and the fatehead speak
  2. The words of lists. The past
  3. Is like a chunked and whittled duck
  4. Leaving its feathers fast
  1. And waddling like a meteor puck
  2. Swaddled and ionized.
  3. The mnemonist will not recall
  4. Anything overdone. Outsized
  1. And fitted with new blender blades
  2. The mnemonist’s brain spins, torques
  3. And never quite outworks the husk
  4. Of simple, fluid quarks
  1. Of thoughts uncategoried. Not
  2. That he cares to. He’ll be back
  3. Before he’ll be away and that
  4. Is what the simple quack
  1. Of where the future started says.
  2. The fatehead likes the present
  3. And likes it just the way it is.
  4. Give her duck, not pheasant.
Packingtown Review – Vol.7, Winter 2015/2016

Daniel Plate grew up overseas (Nigeria) and has lived since high school in various places around the Midwest. He now lives in Illinois near the Mississippi with his wife and three kids, teaching and indulging a hobbyist's interest in everything mathematical.

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