but I forgot rollerblading
past knobby old oaks,
hollows gaping at our speed.
I forgot wheels stuttering
on cracked pavement,
skidding on fallen olives,
forgot the man proudly
stroking himself to us on his lawn.
So when you shrug me off again
after three decades, it’s no
longer a sexual pain,
some organ collapsing.
There’s no longer the new
love galloping through those years
when I first came close to bodies
that were not my family.
I forgot all the white boys we discussed
with their big sneakers & useless fingers
who could make you cry.
I forgot I was your bestfriend
now a woman who tosses
a casual goodbye
as from the window of an Uber
as you wreck again, again
on these old streets.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 3.
Oceana Callum mothers, teaches English Composition, and occasionally surfs in Orange County, California. She received an M.F.A. in poetry from California State University, Long Beach in 2005.
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