On Leaving
I read somewhere that a dog
can actually smell
when you are leaving
I demand to know why God
has done this
Or why bad people can have
good dogs
Or why loving one means agreeing to
bury your own baby someday
I have a lot of questions
I ask What does it smell like
for a dog to leave?
And God does not answer
He won’t tell me It smells like cinnamon
Like winter
in a city you do not love
It smells a lot like the air tonight
God says I am sorry
I know I did dogs all wrong
Says forgive me
Death is a man’s mistake
And I am every wolf’s mother
I no longer pray
to the enemy
I ungrip his hands from my boy
Carry him home in my mouth
No one is leaving
And it smells like morning light
I don’t know where / the light came from. What / direction, I mean. But in the dark / on the beach / I snapped a picture of the smooth / side of your face. I’ve never / captured an image so important. By which / I mean difficult. By which / I mean I’m angry you’re leaving. By which / I mean, I’d like to speak to who’s in charge I / demand someone explain / what is unknowable / Are we getting closer to spring? / Or is the warmth just / my mouth / dripping fire? Find me someone / who can tell the difference / I don’t know where / the light came from / Which is to say / the picture should not exist / Heart-shaped birthmark / across your collarbone / is not in any chart / Just what your parents know / Of the soft, good thing they made / What we cannot un-know / Grew both of you from soil / That’s why there is no scar / You sprouted / two sunflowers / One after the other / What’s another way of saying / slow panic? / Your brother / on his way to you / What’s another word for / come home? / Barefoot at the edge of the driveway / Sun setting over Monticello / She listens to the echo of her whistle / undelivered / Bouncing back from the / nothingness of the street / Calling the no one of her babies home / Dinner is ready / Her lips keep moving / Most of what I know is covered in your hair / At the end of this / the world I mean / they’ll only be able / to find your bones / wrapped inside of mine
Oliver Victoria is a working-class, queer femme writer earning their MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Mills College in Oakland, California. They work in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry forms and have been featured in Pathos and Sic Expression.
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