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© 2024 jennifer wagner |
Dashing through the snow
in a one-horse open sleigh…
OK, so I am actually
dashing through the sun
in a 300 horsepower BMW,
but I am still wishing you
all the best and all the brightest
this Christmas
from right here in Arizona xo.
For years
I looked at my pupils in the mirror
saying your name
to see if they still dilated.
For years.
And when they finally stopped,
I still had a hole inside me.
For years I tried to forget your name,
wouldn’t taste it on my tongue
or repeat it if spoken by another.
For years.
How I wished to unlove you,
feeling you walk around inside my heart,
seeing you walk around outside it
when you had found others to replace me,
while I just simply was not over you.
It wasn’t until I’d had his hands on me
for months
and until I got pregnant—that life
was the love that finally pushed
you out of the place I’d given you.
Years can go by now
and I don’t think of you,
but every now and then
I dream of you,
and every time,
you’re cold, unreachable, blank—
like the last time we spoke
after we both had moved on,
when we met
and I had coffee
and you had none,
looking at me in icy blue.
Why did you even invite me?
Perhaps I will never know.
And so, I hope this poem
speaks the words
I’ve never been able to say.
I hope it is closure
of a good kind
for me,
even if you never read it.
This poem is meant to say,
I loved you.
I remember you loved me.
We had so many good shared experiences,
too, despite the crumbling.
I’m proud of what I know of you,
what I’ve heard about your life,
which isn’t all that much.
But I want your every success,
am truly happy for your happiness,
as you’ve had it.
I am rooting for you in everything.
That’s love, you know.
And maybe that’s what that last
meet-up was meant to show me.
My hands cupped a dove, warm,
with an olive branch extending toward you,
while yours held a wintry glare to blind
the unsuspecting just trying
to move forward on a slippery road.
So, here’s to my forgetfulness,
because,
though I don’t think of you often,
when I do,
when I take the time
to remember,
despite the years,
it hurts,
still.
A sort of epistolary poem for Dora’s “Despite and Still” challenge at dVerse, which I am way too late for linking to, and for “Forgetfulness” at What’s Going On?
The severed heads
of roosters
littered the drive,
the yard.
We walked round them
unsure of what we’d missed—
some comic scene unfolding,
a drama
with cello music playing,
Hitchcock
standing
in silhouette.
I suppose I should
never have been
fooled,
but what did I know
of gallows?
There was fading light
in the lamps, and I was
distracted by
the pleasure
of softening together
like butter in the pan.
Really,
what did I know
of hatchets
in the shed
still warm with blood,
holding your hand
like a miracle
trying to avoid
the inevitable
slaughter at dawn?