Nancy Miller Gomez

HOW TO FORGET

I am lining my memories up against the wall.They are begging me for reprieve. Here is the night I found you on the floor, folded like laundry. Here are the bloody towels,the smell of ammonia and rotting fruit.Once I was a wife. NowI am a wilderness. I am the groveof aspens. All that’s left of youare candle stubs and carpet stains.All your goodbyes have turned into horses.They are grazing peacefully. Your wordsare blades of grass, our last argumenta pasture dotted with poppies.That night I watched you wash your bruised hands in the sink. Now, I see two fish diving into a stream. I am re-remembering the last timewe spoke. I have turned it into a holiday,marked it on the calendar with an asterisk. A day to eat cake.A day to enter the cellar and retrieve the special vintage with its sweet notes of smoke and honey. Lush on the tongue. Easy to swallow. The golden crowned sparrows have returned from their long summersinging of loss. Three notes. One for the knife, one for the cut, one for all I have forgotten.—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024

__________

Nancy Miller Gomez: “‘How to Forget’ grew out of a thought exercise where the narrator is lining her memories up and making choices about which ones to kill off, and which ones to keep and reshape.” (web)

Related* “Punishment” by Nancy Miller Gomez * “Growing Apples” by Nancy Miller Gomez * “Still” by Nancy Miller Gomez