A Thought Out of Reach

I spent a week
searching for the
spelling of coalesce.
By the time I find it
I can’t recall why
I needed it at all.

Thoughts and memories
dance on the periphery.
Take center stage
in the wrong scene,
and at a coffee break
when their role is called.

I know I should know this,
but what is this, and why
should I know it?
The next line is allusive.
A thought here and gone
before it can be captured,
written down,
cemented in permanence.

All art is fleeting,
curated, preserved, restored,
hung on walls in
museums, galleries, exhibitions
for the well to do
to say only this,
that we allow in,
is art.

The next generation
comes, tears down, rearranges,
laughs at the fools of the past
and all that they missed in their midst.
New artist discovered postmortem,
ahead of their time, cult classics,
underappreciated in their era.
Curated, preserved, restored
and hung for the well to do
of the new generation and
their definition of art.

And where do I fit in this?
Too old to be young,
too young to be old.
A self-proclaimed writer
asking, “What is my shelf life,
and will anyone care
when I’ve expired?”