ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, 2004
Deciding to remember—and what to remember—is how
we decide who we are.
Robert Pinsky
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
That’s Pope. And tell me, who remembers Pope?
The sky grows dark. The books go blank. Remind-
ers of our former lives, regrets, and hopes
are zapped into the void, the great lacuna,
as, grain by grain, the sand is washed away.
(“It’s just a bunch of tiny rocks,” some say.)
Ignorance is bliss, they murmur — but — no sooner
have we been brought to see it as a boon,
unlocking our brains to those detail-scrubbers,
than we begin to moan a different tune:
I don’t want this … But where is our dream lover
who’ll meet us at Montauk, as per the plot?
A girl for getting, by a girl forgot …
