It's Like Remembering You
by Hillery Stone
Out the window of an empty cafe
we watch the very first traces of snow this morning,
scrambling in confusion to a ground that won't let it stick.
You sniffle against a cold
that has dragged through months now like a stubborn ankle
and say, looking out through the glass,
this is what we are like.
Here, the temperature can drop forty degrees in an hour,
the lake can freeze and thaw overnight,
I can fall asleep hating you.
This is what we are like.
You had a woman across town who you thought you could love
and at night I could feel your hard body
twisting in the sheets because you dreamed you were missing something.
It's like remembering - this morning
in an empty cafe - it's like remembering the man on the bike,
violently crushed against the old steel fence, then into the road
by six high school boys.
The man on his bike
who may have died right in front of me,
but memory works like that.
I'm watching you adoringly,
humming Nina Simone into portabella mushrooms
and sometimes you smile,
but it's like remembering, baby.
They sliced you open,
stole your rib to create me.
It's how you learned to hate.