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Would You Believe Me If I Said: I Still Love You?
I
If I told you the left shoe
you wore had no sole,
would you think I was
lying?
If you told me the burns on your fingers
were from lighting candles on my first birthday
I’d believe you.
II
On Columbia Boulevard your mobile home
is a tombstone. Whiskey waves lap against
empty-bottle graves.
Ghosts bubble around your ankles.
They’re too deep, you said, the holes.
You started digging before I was born.
III
One December I saw you
crawling out of scars, turning
a million tiny door knobs. Had you
swallowed the keys in handfuls?
You were opening hundreds
of caskets across your body.
IV
I never stopped searching for the face
of you holding my brother
over the pond in Laurelhurst,
black hair reaching like outstretched
hands begging for a shovel.
That photo was the only time
I really saw you.
V
You stand at the window
but you’re not home.
The Other Side of The Mirror
plays on vinyl and ghosts
scratch on the disc like rain.
If I told you I
liked the way spit formed
on the corner of your mouth
like a dozen white roses
would you believe me?
Clara Howell
Clara Howell is an emerging poet born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Clara finds poetry as an opportunity to connect the ordinary with the extraordinary by putting her most honest and raw experiences on the page. Clara's work has been previously published in the Pacific Review and Cathexis Northwest Press.