Mary Taitt
Forgetting You
I roll away from you
across the desert, swallow
my own tail and shrink
into myself. You become
a mirage, I, a hoop,
a living wheel, a snake
with such powerful hunger
that I consume myself. I have no
beginning and no end.
An old black horse, ancient
and bony, staggers out
into the desert. Wind
erases the narrow path
of our passings. I no longer
ride like Lady Godiva. Sand
whistles in the airstream,
and somewhere nearby,
fills lidded sugar bowls
and lidded eyes. I
now have no eyelids.
A single clear scale covers
the green and brown looking out
on the barren world that whirls
starkly around me. The old
horse crumples to the sand.
At eleven eleven,
I turn and reach for your body.
Even out here, with nostrils
full of windblown grit, horse,
thrashing in its death throes,
I remember the smell of your skin,
the convoluted beauty
behind the oasis of your eyes.
I swallow another few inches
of my body, digest my own flesh.
Perhaps when I am small enough,
I will forget you.
BIO: Mary Stebbins Taitt has an MFA in Creative Writing in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has published in McSweeney's, Paterson Review, Montserrat Review, The Bitter Oleander and was nominated for a Pushcart for her poem, "A Jungle of Light."