JOSIAH NELSON

One Poem

If you want to remember her
do not write a hundred poems.
Aim for one. Use perfect words,
angular and sweet, a little
like her look. Describe the early moments
in her parents' kitchen, eating peaches
and cream, how her mother said her legs
were so pale, and she turned away
to say, Don’t draw attention. Render the nights
you sat apart at a crowded table of friends,
how you both kept lifting your eyebrows to say
Hi. Consider comparing
her voice to a magpie’s flight
lilting up and down, but decide
against it. Keep trying. Find
the right metaphor for the sadness
that never leaves her, the one that sings
through you too. Make the poem hurt
so softly, like the thin string of a hangnail
or a bruise you can’t help but press.
Talk about stars, how they saw both of you
addressing the space between bodies
of light. But give yourself time to sit
with the ending. Have a hundred epiphanies.
Stare at the moon. Get up at 2am
to jot a note in your phone. See
whether it makes your body shiver
all over, like her fingers once did.
Lean into the truth like touch: You must
write a final line that salts the whole poem
like her skin on your lips.