What's Changed
By Melanie McCabe
Once I walked out into the world with flesh on, cluster pins of nerves arranged artfully. If you had exhaled against my shoulder or the back of my knee, you might have watched me bloom. I weighed down the darkening like honeysuckle or stones plinked into pockets. I leaned hard against twilight to leave a print of myself for you to find. How very like a small girl to leave so many finger smudges, my palms upturned for a wet cloth, a murmur that wipes them clean. How very like a ghost to tell you, here, this is my hand, and then to pull it away. I was both and more. As fast as I could fold, there were more paper boats to let loose on the air. And yes, of course, I see the flaw in that logic. I tilted my head, opened my mouth to the breeze because I remembered kisses. That kind of faith should have been rewarded, ought to have made the lame lift up their pallets and stand steady in their high heels, but instead I rolled on my tongue no more than a whit of wind. It was a trick to balance it there so long without swallowing. I walked out into the world with eyes on. If you had draped your shadow across them, I would still have seen that it wasn’t you. You were like that, making night blacker than it was ever intended to be. I blinked, not to clear my sight, but to make you feel the stroke of my lashes down your skin. You shuddered; you were legion. I would have settled for any one of you.
Melanie McCabe is the author of three collections of poems: The Nights Divers (Terrapin Books, 2022), What The Neighbors Know (FutureCycle Press, 2014), and History of the Body (David Robert Books, 2012). Her memoir, His Other Life: Searching For My Father, His First Wife, and Tennessee Williams, won the University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize, and a feature article about it appeared in The Washington Post in December of 2017.
12/19 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Kristen Renee Miller / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
12/19 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Kristen Renee Miller + Arsimmer McCoy / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
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such a beautiful poem, thank you!