By Gracie Moran
(Don’t tell anyone), but I’m here
with the students on the steps
flickering in buttercream light.
(I think I love them, in their suede coats and their suede-hued hair).
The January sun groans and
we look at one another exhausted
on a tilt, wondering
how to quiet down.
In the silence is heat
and a nod back to the unsteady brick
laid out for the living.
For them! Two girls
whispering, one’s finger wrapped
around the other’s belt loop.
So this is how I’ll remember them forever.
Memory, the miraculous pressure
to touch, taste, and see the past suspended
muffled and moving
like my favorite songs on a steel guitar.
I’m hearing new sounds this year, a score
of parties and commandments to remember
old acquaintances. How they would lean in
and whisper, come here, I have something to share
with you – their voices
arriving the way imaginary waves rage
inside a seashell.
Can I take it back? Tell them we’re here
and we remember. Tell them
all.
Illustration by Selin Ho