Whom You Remember
It is the people who change things, when you are with
Them. Whom you remember. The whomness of whom.
The one who made love to you, as no one had ever
Made love to you before, made you child
Again, and old, all-wise, healer and receiver.
Another who died decades after you last were with her
But then death, reports of her death, made her present, with
You, as you rode in a car: you heard music ring clear and true
For the first time in your life—and it lasted only an
Hour, a day, that day, then music slipped back to its
Gravy. The very young man who carried your bags up
Your steps, came into your room, only for moments,
And the room you thought was lovely and proud
You saw for its real self, its ghost-lonely plea—
Its hollowness, its bright yellow college timid
Pretensions. That giant Monet poster! The Monet women distant
Filing down the hill under their umbrellas! Then he too gone,
Like that music true and clear and chiming to inside of your brain
And your bones, then your ears leaden again; like comic books
Taken from magic corner of grocery store, no longer there—no
More brown horse stretched out in gallop, its creamy white socks,
Cream fetlock, flow-tail, horse which would gallop new with each dime
Dropped in. Glory all gone, dear Richie Rich, Superman, Batman,
Wonder Woman; and there was such brightness, there is such
Brightness, in posters, in grocery stores, on beds, gathering,
Galloping, on hillsides: all brightens and brightens, then
Disappears.
REBECCA PYLE lives in Utah between the Great Salt Lake and the now populous old mountain mining town the Sundance film festival takes place in each winter. She writes (Healing Muse, Wisconsin Review, Stoneboat, Bangalore Review) and she paints (Permafrost Journal, The Helix, The Underwater American Songbook, New England Review). A poem of hers is a finalist in Penn Review’s poetry prize competition this fall; her poem “The Young in New York” will be published in the next issue of Penn Review. See rebeccapyleartist.com.
Twyckenham Notes 