Two Poems

by Anna Meister

Poem For & After Me Too

Say all of us ever. I was told to stay lost. I couldn’t see through

the fog. Keys between my fingers. Because you think you get to speak right now.

He never said sorry. O intention. We cooked bacon together through the webcam. All the bruises

faded. It only happened once. He blocked my way to the stairs. The room’s windows were

small & high. I only learned the word six months ago. After hearing what you did,

I felt fevered, in search of scissors. It happened so many times. Everything I had

to restitch. First appointment, I said no when she asked. It happened because it could. It’s quiet,

but I know what’s behind me. Because of what I swallowed, I couldn’t say. I wasn’t

trying to dance with you. Heckling & having spilt no wine on his white pants. Whispering

my name, hair pulled in the hallway. Desk shaken. In my car, there’s not enough air.

To give it a name. There’s a moment before. After being asked Can you forgive me? This is how

I lived for months. When he “likes” my post about it. A night looped. Because they were told

not to say anything. The ceiling’s silence. Counting while it happens, keeps happening. & after,

the washing. Used to think just one out of three, like when we guessed who it’d be

at the sleepover. You say you don’t like to think about it. Whatever

I swallowed he kept refilling. The bridge cannot be uncrossed.

Whenever I see Camel-100’s, a green glass bottle. I don’t even know you.

But who’s made to apologize? I nearly forget the ache due to its permanence. Waiting

for the train, again. What I won’t name my baby. I can only draw circles.

If I am in front of you on the stairs. It happened when I wasn’t there. Even if

they only touched me or didn’t even, just called me something sharp. If it was only

my body, if the rest of me went somewhere by tunnel. I ask to stop remembering. This

needs to be shorter. A song looped. I stop counting. Absence representing a presence

is shocking & expected. There was a fall I didn’t leave my room. I am running

from it toward what? Everyone imaginable under the same light. In an attempt

to make you understand the problem.

Elegy with a Line from Mary Jo Bang

My mother’s feet are in the sand

when somehow a leaf stops by,

even though there are no near trees.

Here memory makes you unchangeable.

You, pictured tall with dark hair

under your Dodgers cap, listening to a secret

bent over a sizzling cast-iron skillet

or nudging laughter from the corner.

I haven’t written (about) you in so long.

Thought I got it all out. & still I miss you

today as I read elegy after elegy while

traveling to Kansas City

to attend someone else’s funeral

where I catch afternoon light pressed

through colored glass. I think of the blue

windows in the room where we spoke of you,

how I was a dumb child wearing orange.

I can’t believe no one told me No.

After the service we walk a labyrinth

marked with plastic forks, your ashes

pressed to my mother’s breasts

as if you too are walking. No more

chair with its buttons & functions,

all your limbs working & busy with work.

Unchangeable you. The leaf

that falls on her shoulder as she exits

the maze is what memory makes.