That sound, it's the whiskey bottle against the bathtub

Here I am: I'm in an SST meeting for one of my students, K.B., whose mother wants her switched into the other section of SSJE. Behind me there's a window that looks out behind the school, and this is the fourth floor. It doesn't, but for some reason the window seems to have a white wood border in my mind, like a frame. There are white boxy buildings with black shapes sticking out, behind the school, going out into the Berkeley hills. I've set a maroon spiral notebook on the table next to me. My job in this situation is to offer input on K.B.'s behavior and the quality of her work, to parse the outcomes of moving K.B. to the other section--will it work for her, for other students, but I can't concentrate on that. I'm looking around the room at each of the people. We're sitting in a circle, except for Maggie, who's leaning against the counter. Andy. Kate. K.B. Erica, the new counselor. K.B.'s Mom. Maggie. I'm thinking, what if, on my first day of college, five years ago, I could see this scene. Who are these people? What is this room? This reminds me of a poem. It takes place in Florence, where I've lived. The speaker passes out in a pizza restaurant, and just after she comes to, the lights go out, and she's there in the pitch black, and the last line, which I now realize I've memorized, is "where are we anyway, and who, and what, and why?" Here. Look. What I'm showing you, it's me. I'm in this meeting, looking out the window, then at each of the people, then I'm reminded of the poem, except I cannot remember where I read that poem, what book it's in. So I start going through the catalog in my mind, book by book, thinking of where it could be, and I need to know the answer, I need to be sure of it, my memory hasn't been as reliable recently, I can't remember quotes or what I did a certain night in Hong Kong, I can't think about anything else until I locate where I read this poem, because I know, it's in my mind somewhere, I need to know. Someone asks me a question in the meeting, except I'm scrambling to know what fucking book that poem is in, what book is it in, is it in that Mark Strand anthology, now I'm trying to speak to K.B.'s situation, except it's messy or like a fucking recording because where did I read that god damn poem! It's like I can't find my wallet when I swear it was right on the bookshelf. It replaces all other thoughts. Except, it's not that I even want to find the poem, I just need to know where I read it. And now I'm angry and scared: why can't I concentrate on my job? Why can't I remember? Is my memory getting weaker? Why do I need to look out this window to feel better. Okay. Okay. If I can't remember where I read that poem, I can write somewhere to describe that window. If I can give that image to someone, because it meant something to me. But that's wrong. I don't know. Wallace Stevens said that the problem with imageism was that all objects are not equal. Did he say that in a poem? & it comes to me that all reading is research. All speaking is research. Who am I? I'm trying to find how to tell you.