Jessica Moore: In ten minutes, aside from what you write down on this paper, all your memories will be erased
I would keep the dark basement, and I would keep the eye
of the furnace. I would keep the underwater, the click
of the needle, the soft pulse of toads
inside cupped hands
I would keep laughing till our bellies hurt
on the bus to your grandmother’s farm
The pig who ate the mitten. The weedy passages
between lakes, and that I wasn’t afraid
Stars above and snow beneath
the silent forest and my mother pulling the sled
Stars above and stars beneath
phosphorescence in the nighttime sea
I would keep my grandmother’s voice, you wicked girl
and fighting not to burst out laughing in the taxi
as the ancient driver jolted us to College and Bay
Her pale eyes smiling, the way she said my name
Coffee in tin cups and fire smoke
three crows and the gossamer
wings of clouds
Comfrey at the furthest back corner of the garden
Blue mornings and the shallow sound
of carrots pulling free
I would keep the closeness of women, and the island
where once we docked, brilliant dark blue lake
behind us, climbing up past yellow flowers
into a place all our own
I would keep the whales, but not my mother’s remove that day
I would keep the wolf who held my gaze. I would keep the tent walls beating
all around us but not the rest, not even the night you taught me to two-step
and not the time I wept beside creosote, antelope turning like birds
I would keep John Berger, a skin of water flowing continuously, the paragraphs
I set to memory after the terrible accident
The way I lean into you at the piano
which is the same way you dive into every single body of water
with something more heedless than faith
I would not keep the first kiss
—but I would keep that first kiss, oh god yes
and the worn wood floor in the Junction
and the gift of my own body given back, the spiral of my ear
I would keep the tandem bike, the bus station in Mexico
the wide window in your loft and the smell of bread rising
The night we began, every night we began, the promise
and the moment just before—
Would I keep all I’ve learned since you died?
I would keep that thing I’m always chasing which is the wild aliveness pulsing just behind things, and you can’t look for it, just like the smell of those grasses somewhere in South Carolina so drifting and sweet there was nothing to do but lay down, winds combing us, and wait
I would keep the dream that woke me, pregnant, a shining inside like a lamp
before I remembered the gray
(but really, I have never felt more clearly such joy in a single moment, and it was like a lamp
placed there so I might remember)
I would keep holding you on my chest, two months old, that same light radiating through us
Getting stranded on the sandbank when the tide came in, I would keep that too
I would keep dancing, yes that, and the way the desert sky has blown me open
even to such a keening edge. I would keep singing, every harmony ever swallowed
and every rhythm learned in my limbs, the black dog in the night
and the floors of the barn covered in sweet gale
I would keep almost leaving my body, laughing at the trick
I would keep the edge of the cliff
(First published in Arc 100. Shared by permission of the author)