HOW THE STORY GOES

I’m sorry I have the memory of a mushroom.

On Saturday I forgot to buy honey. I forgot

to buy moisturizer from the drugstore

and pick up poems by Forché. This is why

I try to write everything down: promises,

appointments, birthdays, and other responsibilities,

but there are just some things I don’t remember.

Like the dark, watery spell my finger traces

in search of the Little Dipper. Or the reason

we scream at each other like wild horses.

But I remember the faces of my teachers,

turning to tell us what will happen

and why. That love so helpless must be a child

in a field of lilies. That you can hear a blue whale’s heartbeat

10,560 feet away, and your blouse was really

a corner of the sky the first time we met.

I remember one night, I was in my underwear, crying

in front of a lamp, wanting everything

to be over, and you told me you love me,

and I believed you, I do.


Grace Q. Song is a Chinese American writer residing in New York City. Her poetry and fiction have been published or are forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, PANK, THRUSH, The Offing, The Journal, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. She attends Columbia University.