Poem

Not Forgotten

/ Katrina Kaye / 1 Comment

Katrina Kaye

I.

You were 32 years old,
our mother, not forgotten.

There is no
beloved wife or
darling daughter
to aid in your
description.

At 32 how many
children did you
have? how many
remain clung
to that engraving,

that final epitaph,
not forgotten?

II.

I have forgotten
the way my mother
taught me
to make tortillas,
but I still remember
her stories in
broken English.
The one about
the earthquake
that shook the roof
onto her bed
and the little dog
she had as a girl.

I have forgotten
my father’s
best jokes
but I still remember
the blue of his eyes
and catch his
scent on rainy days
that remind me
of California.

III.

Gracie,
do your children
still see pieces
of you in their
reflections?

Do your children’s
children come here
to sit at your memory
and rehash your stories?

You died eleven years
before my mother’s birth,
my father would
have been five.

I am a year older
than you ever reached,
but the word mother
remains a foreign language
tangled in my throat.

An unmarred womb
I refuse to forfeit.

IV.

If I died today,
what would they
engrave on my stone?

How soon
would I be
forgotten?

“Not Forgotten” is previously published in You Might Need to Hear This (2021).

Afterthought

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

Love was not first sight
or even mid coil;
it came somewhere
after midnight,
before the dawn,
when we were both
slithering in
our own caves.

Love was scrolled on the
envelope, not the letter,
left on the doorstep,
not the night stand.

Love arrived retrospectively,
then hung around my neck,
an over-sized python,
slipping its forked
tongue around my ear.

It crept slow,
then consumed,
like the subconscious sway
of a charmer’s flute.

I tried to say it,
through casual conversation
and bites of my lower lip,
but by the time
I finally murmured,
I love you,
the only witness
was the steady hiss
of the dial tone.

“Afterthought” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories Like That Anymore (2011).

Beating Heart Cadaver

/ Katrina Kaye / Leave a comment

Katrina Kaye

I wish I could warm my feet on you tonight;
I wish you would take my hands in yours
and ask me why I am always so cold.

I tell you it’s not my fault.
Ropes of red under pale skin,
beating burden buried in ribbed cage,
these things lack heat.

My cold body
doesn’t deny the pump of blood,
but heart is veiled deep
and when hand curls against chest,
the cavern seems hollow.

This is life without living.
Disappointment in survival
leading to dropped eyes
and limp lips.

What’s the point of circulation
without the ability to feel sensation?
What’s the point of catching
the wind if unwinged?

Skin only prickles in the breeze.
A reflex, not a reaction.

Spiteful muscle continues convulsing.
I lack the talent to stop it
as much as the spark to ignite.

You once enveloped me completely;
concealing me safely inside cracked fingers
with a protective embrace.
You shielded me from broken glass and car crash.

Now, my back has toughened
under the beat of sun.
Fossilized casing becomes only shelter,
curdled limbs only protection.

I miss being able to stretch open,
to reach for you, to squeeze back.
I miss the way your hands made mine
seem warm and

so

very

small.

“Beating Heart Cadaver” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).