"Mnemosyne’s Curse" by Charlie Brice

Your wings so fast you

blur across my yard.

Your body no more than

an inch long,

a blend of bee and moth,

though neither

bee nor moth.

You flit from day lilies

to roses, hyacinth

and marigolds, then

to our service berry bush

and up to the neighbor’s

locust tree—so fast

that speed itself gets jealous.

At 73 I am dismayed.

I can’t remember

your name! But then

I recall that

a name is not your business,

not your concern—

a matter of indifference

to the nectar you gather,

the flowers you befriend,

and the merry hues

that guide your flight.

Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His sixth full-length poetry collection is Pinnacles of Hope (Impspired Books, 2022). His poetry has been nominated three times for both the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, The Paterson Literary Review, Impspired Magazine, Salamander Ink Magazine, and elsewhere.