On the Seventh Year, I Remember my Goal of Forgetting

I reduce you. It is my goal. Your figure becomes smaller as the calendar drags forward. I see the distance grow between now and then - I allow its size to eclipse you more and more. Today you are smaller than yesterday. Tomorrow you will be smaller yet. I take my hands and push all swirling moments onto a line. I throw you to the back of it. I smother you in seven years. There I will not see you.

Dawn

i cannot sleep.
my shoulders crumpled, the bed is a stiff body
an old husband i do not love, i am no wife. i take off my rings
to wash my hands. i take off my clothes
to wear the bedsheets, nothing. turning over, over,
awake still, and the well of night
drying up,

i sit and rock back and forth
the mattress speaks, frustrated with me.
my feet touch to the floor, and i hear
the grey screaming it has, the groaning sunrise, tired of itself.

how quickly one fantasy is punctured by another

saturday night riding up grand avenue with our knees
joints greased with liquor, we shared a vision of the possible past
we shared a vision of the body in pain.
my body. his hands pulling at my left side.
scratching and pulling as though trying
to undress, to interrogate,
he found me with his teeth and pulled again
asking questions by hand:

how quickly a fantasy is punctured
like a vein. a dream of blood vessels bursting
across his face
a vision of him, helpless
he was too weak to take me down
so i have forgotten him