Things to Remember
a box of rose buds and petals,
time-blackened, sweet-smelling,
holding memory of the week you video-called
from Punta Cana because you were still thinking
of me, early days
when we were figuring out things and each other,
solitary awkward acts of confirmation,
asserting our selves through each other in fluttering
excitement.
I loved that you paused mid-embrace,
we stared into the closet mirror and you
urged me to remember the moment, the feeling of
skin, our legs entwined, my arms around you;
a life drawing in words.
so often my eyes are closed and then I’m
startled by your smiling energy and
I always want to tell you
that you are so beautiful,
a delight.
how could I ever forget- our heat-fused skin, the way
just thinking about you excites me, running my
fingertips down your arm, looping around your stomach,
soft warmth, my face buried in your neck,
soft strands of your hair across my cheek
maybe it was a joke but
when you said we could never live together, my dog’s
nails clip-clopping so loudly on your floor, I cried
for a moment, a brief and sudden devastation, knowing I
can’t make myself smaller, my life smaller, please
don’t close the door before it swings
wide open
what’s possible is more than we can even imagine
things to remember:
your sushi order
your buzzer number
your favourite colour
the path to your heart
Janna Wilson is a Vancouver-based poet. Recent work has appeared in Paddler Press, Discretionary Love, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Roi Fainéant Literary Press, The Hooghly Review and Full House Literary. Her first chapbook, The Octopus Hunter, was published by Leaf Press in 2010.