Forgetting Is Good Because Nothing Makes Sense and Forgetting Makes That Make Sense

                           after Muriel Rukeyser

When I said I was grafted via artery
to the oldest tree in the forest, I lied—it was a lie 
when I said she was my mother.
I know it was a lie because of the furtive way I let 
the words out of the dirty pen behind my heart.
I lied when I said I wanted to pack the spaces 
between me and the others with oily rags 
and knives, and when she said she was
the others, I felt suspicion and envy.
Am I willing to be the others? Is the desire 
to be a thing indicative of already being it?
I was an other until my fortress door 
was locked, until this thicket grew up 
around. Now I is a trap, I is a scrap, I
is a shackle, I is a joke, I is a trap. I already 
said that. When I said I was trapped,
that was a lie. I locked the door
and I planted the thicket. But then I forgot 
the reference of my poem, forgot the fairy tale 
it swallows whole like a rhombic snake
and spits out the shell. It’s better this way— 
the reference is traumatic, the way it
lifts you out of the stream, stares 
down at you with its huge wet eyes 
and steaming nostrils, ogling you 
as long as it wants, as you squirm
in the palm of its hand, until it drops you 
back into a river you’ve never met,
an unknown life. But hey, it was a lie that I didn’t 
want eyes on me, want desire to fill some
of the spaces between me and the others.
It was a lie when I said I didn’t care
about goodness. A lie when I said forgetting 
was good, when I plunged myself into this vat 
of viscous strange colors and vanished
into opacity. The truth is it’s clear as glass 
in here and I can see me fine.

Read more from Issue 18.1.