don't worry I know you're dead
but tonight
turn your face again -Frank Bidart, "The Yoke" (1997)
A few weeks have passed since graduation, since the last time I'll ever see you. I can't see that yet. I still have hope.
hope is a thing with feathers- Emily Dickinson (1861)
(Other things with feathers: down bedding, pens, masks)
I think back to that night and the last moments before sleep in the hotel that isn't there anymore.
(I have a postcard of the hotel tucked in my diary.)
I write about that night in my diary, in my mother's living room, my bags upstairs, still unpacked. June sunlight pours in the sliding glass doors, James Taylor always on the record player.
hey baby I'm your handyman
Everything's over now.
It's okay
(Parts of a feather: the vane, barbs, shaft, barbules, afterfeathers.)
In the hotel room, before, the lights are out. My white nightgown is back on. I'm under the duvet, cozy. You sleep naked the way you tell me you always do, one foot on top like a wing you could flutter.
I know you're dead
(I heard you were cremated. Where have the pieces of you flown to now?)
I curl up on my right side. I'm facing away but you're all I can see. I kick off the covers. I pull up my knees. I flop on the mattress, land on my back with a thud. The mattress crackles. I bend my knees, feet flat. I sigh.
but tonight
"Are you all right?" (Your voice is so thin, a mohair blanket, scratchy, full of holes. But warm.)
"I'm sorry, I have a headache."
"Here, come here." ( I do your bidding. I always have.)
You turn on a late-night talk show and I slide over, put my head on your shoulder and my arm around your chest, hard and hairy, my fingers resting on your solar plexus, curled, just fingertips touching. The last thing I remember is I'm laughing.
turn your face again
This memory will stay caged in the diary I won't throw out once you're dead. When I find the memory again, quivering, twenty years later, when you're dead, I'll remember that day and how I sat alone, sun shining through the blinds, longing for the dark.
Marie Cloutier (she/her) is a writer and poet. Her work has appeared in Dorothy Parker's Ashes, HerStry, Corvus Review, Bare Back Magazine and elsewhere. She is at work on a memoir. Her website is www.mariecloutier.com. Instagram: @bostonbibliophile2 Bluesky: @bostonbibliophile.bsky.social