The name of every beau, I remember.
Aproned Mom kneading dough, I remember.
High on song, we left with Cramps’ guitar picks,
car shards from Wendy O. I remember
Spit like it was yesterday, forget why
I stood up. Write notes so I remember.
We crashed at Ann’s when the clubs closed. Her booze-
thickened voice, Eileen’s slow eye. Remember?
Read in high school, Steinbeck and Fitzgerald
faded. Even Yeats. Poe, I remember.
The mind’s a trickster, mixing childhood
with dreams. I doubt, although I remember.
Everything recalled is happening now.
Muscles clench. Breath shallow, I remember.
Years of flirty friendship, then, on our first
date, a double rainbow. I remember
knowing we’d marry as we hiked, lost, scared
of bears. We spooked a doe. I remember
the breeds-of-dogs wallpaper in my room.
Tag. Swings. Angels in snow. I remember
hiding under blankets till the fight stopped.
Thrown plates, smashed radio, I remember.
That last rainy November, his voice chilled
like wind. I have to go. I remember
sobbing in a striped dress near a dying
oak. The moon’s tepid glow, I remember.
An ambulance, and then my first friend gone.
Though it was long ago, I remember.
When we get the lesson, the past loosens
its claw. I learn, I grow, I remember.
People I never missed reach out. It’s been
years, did you forget? No, I remember.
Why am I wired to let ecstasy
and achievement fade? Woe I remember.
Despite a healing bath in Lethe’s sweet
erasure, when drinks flow, I remember.
Some days my mother’s face blurs and her voice
could be anyone’s, though I remember
her fingers. Guilt’s thorns can never fully
be pulled out — Debts I owe, I remember.
Brushed by desire’s wing, what did I learn?
The burn of letting go, I remember.
Jay, if Stone’s words can reach whatever realm
you disappeared to, know – I remember.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 1.
Alison Stone has published five poetry collections, including Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin award. A licensed psychotherapist, she has private practices in NYC and Nyack. www.stonepoetry.org www.stonetarot.com
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