By David O’Connell

Featured Art: Morning Haze by Leonard Ochtman

Oh, that’s right—because I’m going to die.
Sometimes I forget. More often than not.
And then, that’s right! I’m going to,
sometime. Because . . . I’m going to. Forgetting,
but only sometimes, that’s how this works
more than not. And then we wake to snow,

quite unexpected, the whole neighborhood quite,
you know. And you say to me, yes, that’s right,
cream, two sugars. Sometimes I forget. Or
these days, more often, because, you know,
that’s how this works. And now I remember
we’re going to. Both of us. And there’s the car

*

snowed under, looking so unlike itself. It takes
an easy faith to see it. What it truly is. I believe
this morning the whole neighborhood is a fact
refuting last night’s forecast. I’m predicting
this icicle by evening will stretch down past
the window, which reminds me—yes, that’s right,

*

last night, 2 or 3 a.m., I woke to the whole house
moaning in the wind. And I felt warmer beside you
surrounded by this sound, our house, and maybe
the whole neighborhood, the neighborhood houses
and the neighborhood trees all moaning. It was snowing,
but I didn’t know. Sometimes, I forget this

*

is how it is with us. Just as I, at times, forget
I, we, are going to, you know. They’re saying now
more is on the way by evening. It almost hurts
to look out there’s so much sun. I’m going out
to prove the car’s still here. You remind me,
yes, of course, coffee. How could I ever forget?

---

David O’Connell’s work has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, Sugar House, and North American Review, among other journals. His first full-length collection, Our Best Defense, is forthcoming in 2021 from Červená Barva Press. More of his work can be found at davidoconnellpoet.com.