Awarded Best Student Magazine in the Country by the Society of Professional Journalists in 2021!

The Remains 

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.

Illustration by Ashley Zheng.
Illustration by Ashley Zheng.

—Eden Feiler

More Stories
Full Disclosure