I.
Time travel to the past
through these still hot ashes
tethered to a place and time
now unrecognizable. The history:
you remembered by you
as shovels sift through.

II.
Under blankets
sweat.
The waking abrupt.
Dried bouquets hung
upside down from a nail
in the attic stairway.

III.
One day there was a disappearance.
Then there was a year.
Then there was a sickness.
Then the heft the cortisol had
packed on dissipated
a slow relief.

IV.
Vu ja de
something familiar happens
but it seems new

V.
Out on the beach the line between
apparent in the slope.
Sand from each length of shore
keeps in glass ornaments.
The plastic ones melted together
redefining geography. Edges slowly
collided. The line between no
longer clear. The slope flattens.

VI.
Loss is loss.

VII.
When they raked through coals
temperatures rose.
They’re supposed to soften and cave.
They didn’t here. Not this time.
Not the time before.

VIII.
A bed is not a bed
when no one sleeps in it.
It’s a place holder. It’s a pause.

IX.
We’d planned to travel together.
Secluded cabins. Bulky sweaters.
Quick drives built into the grid.
We’d planned to move in. Rent out.
Give up this one life for another.
We’d planned to be old—
No. That’s a lie. That wasn’t a we.
That wasn’t a plan.

X.
To want something,
to really want. To intentionally
build anew. To dig in. To stay.

XI.
When they preach
safety in numbers
they mean more than two.
Two is the least safe.

XII.
We shucked. Husks straw and silk
strewn themselves across the dirt.
A barn raised will be a barn razed.
A barn razed becomes roadtrip nostalgia.
We walked the property line
repairing fences and restringing wire.
Cold mornings didn’t mean anything.
Work requires getting done, so we did
because we had to, bundled in winter coats,
thick socks, knitted hats, wool gloves.
We piled the fallen into rows
over uneven land. The sky shifted.
We seeded and nothing grew.

[lines in Part I are rearranged from a passage in Lisa Genova’s Remember.]

– Christina M. Rau