Poem: The Answers Were Found, Once

The Answers Were Found, Once

I am certain we had them,
I remember it happening, all the answers were found
and we had a big party to celebrate.  I think that happened,
I am certain of it.  We had them all in envelopes,
each and every answer to any question
and every question, and there were articles,
front page stories about all the answers being found.
It was a celebration, a big affair all around the world
with everyone out in the street and on the roof
and blasting music and dancing and singing
because we found all the answers.  I am sure of it.
Don't you remember?  I know it happened.
We had them all lined up and ready to go.
No, that can't be right.  It cannot be, can it/
It is not a world where that could happen,
not even for a moment.  I don't know what to say
because I remember it and I know it cannot have been
and maybe that is the way things are all the time
with all of it so clear but still impossible
and never being able to be what it is,
and this poem is going in so many wrong directions.
I remember the subway skipping stations when I was in high school
and I was terrible at riding the train, didn't know anything
except my own stops, my home station and the one at school
and nothing after or before, maybe a few in between
but not that well, not all that clearly.  I knew what I knew
and not what I did not need to know
or thought I did not need to know
and I got lost when the train skipped my stop,
had such troubles.  I do not remember how I made it back.
It is the same now.  I am certain of having answers,
of having had them, of knowing certain things,
of all of it being on the map if I had looked.
No, it is all a bad metaphor, isn't it.  I don't have anything else to say
and I cannot stop saying it all.  I am here, I am running through the streets
wishing I knew which direction was home.
In one town where I lived as a little boy I knew the names of the streets:
I could not read but I knew each street name in order
and could find my way home from anywhere
if I asked for the name of the street I was on and walked a block away
and asked again for the street name.  I could count my way home
and know the right direction.  I never did that with the train,
it was not a thing I did.  I didn't realize the streets in that town
were in alphabetical order.  I could not read yet, did not know the alphabet,
but when I had to learn it, that was what taught me:
I already knew the answers because I knew the list of streets in proper order,
had them all laid out, all the answers, had found them even before the question.

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