I knelt in my basement-turned-courtroom, a judge presiding over a trial of twelve
years’ worth of immunization records, progress reports, cringeworthy
haircuts, and cardstock certificates, a lifetime of memories
to remember,
to forget.  

For an hour, I riffled through hazy recollections. 
Many sentences I sentenced
to oblivion:
generic certificates with “Outstanding Student” italicized on blank
lines, thank-you notes for gifts delivered not given.  These unworthy
memories wait to be paraded to shredder’s merciless maw, to be remade
into another third grade report card, to be stuffed into a bursting binder, to be forgotten
again.

Some memories I chose to spare:
scribbled Crayola drawings no sensible art museum would display, middle school theatre
programs from my brief stint as a starlet, letters that still make me smile.
These pardoned pages I will bury
in dusy plastic boxes I can visit like old tombstones
and remember past joys, memories that don’t have to die.