an implement remembers
"The knife remembers that I never
cut you deeper than I had to. "
--rae mckinley
in explanation, she said she'd stolen
her brother's bicycle and left it
near the percolation ponds and walked
all the way to school. and I wonder
now why I never suspected drugs,
or worse. Crystal meth. pregnancy.
she said to me that it was time to stop
pretending she could do this any more.
(she said she loved me)
he'd fucked her in the afternoon, he said, his
voice soft with rememberance. his hands
curved on my naked back and i knew he was
remembering her breasts under his palms.
he implied her temptation, described
her charms, spoke wonderingly
of life created.
(he said he loved me, he had no reason to lie)
both of you hang over my life, heavy and sharp,
the first defining abandonment, the second
hurt. You are a record in a database, a
death date, a short note in the newspaper,
a name leaving no one's lips. You
are a constant weight. you had no reason
to lie.
You are both a silence encompassing generations.
I will remember, in the last dream,
that nothing was sacred to either of you.
February 1998