by Rebecca Connors

Take that bag –
that 20 pounds of nightmare –
& empty it under the cover of night
while beetles & bats cling to hair or
imaginary numbers.
Release octaves
of hoarded photos, borrowed t-shirts, love
letters with abandoned addresses.
What happened before
is irretrievable. Drink whiskey till
amber-eyed, dare to throw china dishes
against the wall – a startled cat, fragmented
forget-me-nots, nicked wallpaper –
until the fever falls, my fingers cooled.
I’m moon hungry. I am the key of G.
I am years distant
in another constellation & I still can’t forget
all the times bed-rocked or land-locked.
I want to pound my knuckles raw,
my voice inside me tea-kettling.
I want the past to know my evidence,
see the way to resolution.
Tenacious like a city racoon
chittering underneath an open window &
scrambling through mistakes –
How can I accept all my
bents & burdens?
Drink up honeysuckle. Rest my head
against the world.
Know my home and know I am home:
parched grass, nightbirds
the delicate scream of dogwood petals.
 

Rebecca Connors (she/her) is the author of the chapbook, Split Map (Minerva Rising Press, 2019). Her poems can be found in DIALOGIST, Glass Poetry Journal, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others. She is the co-founder of the virtual literary arts space, The Notebooks Collective, and earned her MFA from the Solstice Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College. She lives in Boston with her family and two cats. Follow her on Twitter @aprilist, Instagram @aprilistwrites or visit her site at aprilist.com.