By Emma Aylor

Sleeping it off last night I dreamed I had one lung.
The other next to me in bed dark and putting
off smoke.                      When you were young
I passed my Virginia Slim so you wouldn’t get
the taste for it: I remember standing in the kitchen
lighting it up                                        for my girl.
You never did smoke after that. In front of the TV
last night I spilled the whole drink down my shirt
          a little in this world                                    a little in the other.

I’ve been Anne Moore for most of my life.
My last morning as Lester I looked
like Liz Taylor’s sister                        hair dark and glossed.
It’s hard to remember myself like that.
I depend on a picture to know I was beautiful –

waist a switch                in a virgin’s dress.
Couldn’t have done better at nineteen,
grew up so close to Tennessee.
We moved all over the plains for a time
and came back to Bill’s dad’s store.
I remember days up to my elbows in spicy chili,
nights raising you                               right up the hill.

My hands have shaken my whole life. Always think
it could have been worse. A favorite joke:
a parrot who swears is punished by being put
in the freezer. Once, it sees a frozen turkey
in the corner                          and says,
DAMN, that bird must                         have said fuck.
             I remember I told you and your daughter         you looked at me
like I didn’t understand a single stupid thing.
Would it make a difference if I did

that same house    your father repeating            GODDAMN IT ANNE
like a stuck station in front of you and all
my children’s                      children
                                                                    and

it’s morning in the bath now and I’m not getting up yet.
In the water a bruise on my arm
develops like a litmus paper                               a little
yellow –                                 hardly acidic.

I remember leaving your daughter at the pool while I wet
my brain               came back to her sunburned
pink as a hot pig.              Remember she fell
off the bed and scarred her little nose
a white line still                            cut through the freckles.
Light through the bathroom                        glancing sideways.
            My daddy drank. I remember how bad.
It’s not really a reason                          but I remember enough.
My chest clutches                 a little
and then fills up.       Water gets a little bluer
with what comes off my skin.
It’s not possible that you remember me.

---

Emma Aylor’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, Colorado Review, Pleiades, Sycamore Review, and the Cincinnati Review, among other journals, and she received Shenandoah’s 2020 Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia Poets. She lives in Lubbock, Texas.

Originally appeared in New Ohio Review 29.