#memory poem

By Marlana Dekine

I am a child

of wonder again and

rain tells me to watch

for snails and slugs.

I gather dirt, sand, and sticks

for the terrarium

where I make a safe home

away from footsteps, fast cars, and ditch water.

I don’t want them to die

so I make them

a space for living.

I ask my ma to buy lettuce

because in the book I got from the library

I learned they will eat lettuce.

I am

greedy to learn

what keeps everything alive.

Their spiral shapes leave shiny trails behind.

I imagine I am a snail leaving

magic everywhere I go.

your hand fit into mine like it had learned me before.

our breath shared the same pause the same quiet the same unspoken yes.

My poem, Translating Baudelaire from my collection, Moonstone Silhouettes: http://www.rjdent.com/moonstone-silhouettes/

Sarah B. Blackstone

/frend/

noun

i. i met you when we were both young

my parents drove all the way to iowa for you;

for someone i’d call my friend for the rest of my life-

or at least that’s what i thought.

i was naive but it was blissful,

i thought you were the greatest thing in the world

[i still do, really]

ii. before the bad, there was the good-

or, really, the lucky.

one halloween, you ate an entire bag of chocolate.

you were so lucky you didn’t die on the spot.

over the years you’d steal all kinds of human food from us.

you’d steal from the counter when we weren’t looking

you’d eat the cat food despite having your own bowl of your own dog food

you would beg with those sad brown eyes for our pizza crust,

you’d wait at our feet for one of us to “accidentally” drop food we didn’t like.

when you got impatient, you’d dance-

we’d never known a dog to dance when they begged,

but we’d never had a dog as silly as you.

iii. i wasn’t always the best friend to you.

there were days where i barely said hi to you when i got home

days where i should’ve played with you and instead i played on the tv

[those days will always be my biggest regret in life]

you were always my best friend;

you were loud and playful

and liked to bark at everyone you saw.

those nights in my backyard

chasing fireflies and kissing frogs

will always be with me;

and the summer days where you got out

or ate bees even though you knew as well as i did that it never ended well

[i miss those days more than i miss anything else i’ve ever lost]

iv. the day after my birthday we said goodbye.

[i guess you’d really been saying goodbye for a while.]

in your own way, you’d already known.

[animals are like that; they know when their time is up.]

you’d been sleeping upstairs for a change

your hearing was gone

you didn’t bark at strangers

you couldn’t jump anymore.

that last one is when we really started understanding,

but it wasn’t until that day in july when i had to face it.

after my birthday, we said goodbye.

they said you’d been sick for a while

that there was nothing they could do

but make it comfortable.

a tumor had grown,

tangling your insides

[insidious]

and leaving us little choice

but to end it before it ended you.

so that’s what we did.

but we left early

your last moments weren’t with your people like they should’ve been

instead you were in a cold white room

with a woman you didn’t know.

and i’ll never forget how small you looked

lying on a towel on the white floor.

[how sad it is to leave a friend behind.]

// © achilles 2019 //