GOD OF FORGETTING
My mother teaches me
how to rinse parsley.
Dirt ripens the drain.
Her ring rests by the sink.
Gardens caught
in our mouths. The moon
outside: an accident,
a dog sifting bones.
It’s dinner, early fall.
Ella on the radio. I snap
my fingers, my crumpled jeans
the color of river
after a storm. The sound
of chopping, pots boiling,
dry pasta torn in half,
everything forgetting itself.
In my picture books,
the Styx ferried bodies
to the beyond. Every grave
green shoots.
SIDESHOW
Every direction treeless. Every house
I’ve lived in stacked up like
milk bottles. They’re watching me
from the windows, lined up
to catch a glimpse of the girl
who doesn’t feel, who
doesn’t cry when the boys
tug at my skirt, pull barrettes
from my long hair. If this
was a dream the field would be
water already, my body naked.
The curtains in the windows
something I could float on,
froth of white. But there
is no sea here, no quiet.
My mouth is a pinned butterfly.
I cut a stone out of the air.
How pretty she is, they say,
their noses singeing the glass.
Caitlin Neely lives in Virginia. Her work has been published in West Branch, The Journal, Passages North, Sixth Finch, Devil’s Lake, and elsewhere.
