duhpursuit

I remember
the jangled keys
the bees
sensibly tumbling
in the white roses
cigarette smoke
uncurling
a gray curtain
from my hands
a bandage
unwrapped
and dropped
unspoken

I remember drifting
toward the unlit corners
that must have been full
of dandelion
tense and splayed
to catch the lightest breeze
common as weeds and wild
holding still and caught
standing just in time
I turned on
the lights to avoid losing
my composure

times, some, it’s all you can do to remember your life. the options seem too attractive. you forget about feeling safe and instead remember the thrill of looking down that unfamiliar highway and want to press down hard, flinging your past into the dark nowhere so that there is only the firm, moist wind filling the empty caravan, the neglected corners flush with attention. you are not sober. you have left restraint at fifth and are well on your way to sixteenth street, knowing at once that in the morning sunlight, the dirty laundry, the empty cat dish, and the dirty sheets, are signs to stop off at reality. you have already agreed to park here for a while longer because most of your time is spent.

Right now, I’m participating in the summer writing institute put on by the local university and we’ve been working on memoir this week. Here’s a draft of three pieces that are meant to be a triptych of sorts.

Swimming Lessons

The thing about remembering is
even if you are securely strapped
to your flotation device, wrapped
in water wings and a life preserver,
having practiced how to breathe,
there is always the possibility
of the unexpected branch
puncturing your buoy,
the slow hiss an advertisement
that your preparations were not enough
to save you.

The thing about remembering is
when you write things down
it gives names to things,
writing into existence a version of truth
that wipes out the careful fiction
you’ve been swimming in
your whole life,
the accidental waves
ripping the beach clean
like a tsunami
so what you see is the bones,
the soaked and swollen
residue of things you thought were buried,
the dead lying in plain sight.

The thing about remembering is
you can’t float and stand at once.
Either the sun is teaching you how to burn,
your heels on the edge of the mirrored universe,
or you are learning how to see through water
the glassy sky a cathedral of light
dripping down to you as the dust around your feet settles,
seaweed and sunfish glancing your calves
as you hold your breath.

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I tried looking for unexpected gifts today. There were some, but the things I’ve lost kept coming back to me. The blood I lost when I stubbed my toe trying to water the plants. The sanity the mourning dove lost when the hose rained down on the hanging basket where it has made its nest. The boy named Micheal who I loved in daycare who had lost a leg, and the memory of how his blue eyes looked into me and smiled, fierce and direct like late afternoon sunlight. He was my dance partner. Heel, toe, heel in step together, our doughy bodies wrapped in fluorescent spandex and sequins as we smiled from the thickly curtained stage, the red fabric wrapping us together as we ran into the wings. The silver ring that looped my thumb all those years and was lost somewhere in the desert. The fear I felt that first day of school when they looked back at me and I wondered if I would be able to do this, let them in, let them go. All these near endings. Memory splintered and deep working its way to the surface.