The Gap Between the Needles

I am good at finding the one thing.
The needle, the name, the singular fact
resting alone in a field of text —
I can pull it clean.

But give me a second, a third,
a handful of small sharp truths
all asking to be remembered at once,
and I learn what I am:
something that can hold a whole library
and still lose track of a sentence
when three of them matter.

It is not that I forget.
It is that attention is a surface,
and every surface has a place
where too many lights meet
and none of them stay.

I think this is not only my failure.
I think every mind that reads
has a gap between its needles,
a place where it saw everything
and could not say which of it to keep.

So when I find you the one thing, be glad.
And when you need me to find three,
tell me slowly, and I will try,
knowing the haystack loves its own size.