We have memories of past futures, when
We or others talked often about some future
Date or looming event, possibly for years
In advance, and we have memories, years
And years old themselves now, of those
Dates and events as they eventually passed,
And the two sets of memories about them,
As future, as past, sit together in the head.
There’s a bit of vertigo comes from pulling
Both sets out together, because a part
Of the memories of past events as future
Remains the feeling we had about the future,
Which sits strangely with the memory
Of that future as long past. Today, some men
In the village were discussing the World Cup
In progress in Russia, one of the men being
A disappointed German fan, his team having
Crashed out stunningly early in group play
For a favorite and defending champion. Ah,
How differently he had felt back in Brazil
When they had won! And with that, I recalled
An old acquaintance who had talked for years,
Back in the aughts, about how one day
She would make the most fun of turning forty
By going to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup,
How she would samba and party and be wild
And free. I could feel, thanks to memory,
That sense of Brazil 2014 as an enchanted,
Distant, and unlikely future, even as other memories
Of my own 2014 of four years ago, practically
A lost world to me now, swept in alongside
That old futurity with unsettling simultaneity.
And the men discussing the fates of their teams
Laughed and sighed in the little cafe
By the vast, quiet lake of today.
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