The speaker stands in a house one morning, surveying what is left of a shared past, and asks two small, practical questions: where did I fix the walls, and where did I cover them over? "Our past" suggests the house once belonged to more than one person, and the word "remains" gives the scene a quiet sense of aftermath, as if something has ended.
What makes the poem interesting is how it turns household repairs into a question about memory. Patching and papering are ways of hiding damage, so the speaker's inability to say which is which hints at how we smooth over painful moments until we forget they happened. That fits the title, "Selective Memory." The speaker seems unsure what was really mended and what was merely disguised.
The mood is reflective and a little unsettled. There is no outburst of grief, just a calm, searching tone, and the unanswered question at the end leaves the feeling of looking at a wall and not quite trusting what is underneath.