Ask Me How I Know

                        The Mass in Latin.

The alphabet backwards

What the Beaufort Scale measures

Whether a baby’s cry is hunger or loneliness

The perfect recipe for chocolate fudge.

How to get ink out of silk

When a goodbye is final

How to French braid hair

Assemble a topknot in under three seconds. No bobby pins. None.

The real names of Lady Gaga and Cary Grant and Gopher on Love Boat

The chemical symbol for strontium

How to make a Brandy Alexander

Stop the bleeding

Paint a 50-foot high aluminum billboard.

How to draw a person’s profile using the numbers 1, 2, 3.

Make a slipknot, a bowline, an overhand knot. A lariat loop.

Say “Your lifejacket is under your seat” in Arabic.

“Come this way” in Vietnamese.

Ask me how I could possibly know

How to let you go

And survive to write another word.