after Marilyn Hacker
Light glints off of the tower across
the screeching street, strangers,
the psalm of a shameless city.
I’ve scrubbed raw all the places
you kissed me, dry skin flaking, long dead
from the weeks I wasted tracing
your fingerprints half-Windexed
on the mirror. Walking the streets
you first showed me, I’ve forgotten how
I first recoiled when you held my hand,
two girls in the avenue, they hadn’t
yet wrapped the lights around the trees.
I was cold in your sweater
that now sits at the bottom of my drawer
for the moths to gnaw and unweave.
The books of poetry gather dust
next to stained glass: ashamed of your condition,
you hid yourself in Hallmark greetings &
next-day mail. I stopped missing you when the
juice expired, leaves
frozen into the surface of the lake
began to float on thawed water.
—Eden Feiler