Sam Moe

In another universe, you stay, and we do each other’s hair for the wedding

Arguing about what chiffon really means, we in pale
blue silk pajamas, everything is seductive, the ants

are recluses until we bring out the cakes, I remember I saw
your arms up to the elbows in batter once, thought,

you are my home, now I say, why stay, the grandmothers
are gone and the kitchen is a sword, your ex hums

in the foyer and your mother is pitching a fit over her makeup
leave it all behind, I say goodbye to you in the daffodils

but you never followed me out here and to begin with I shouldn’t
be hanging in the brush, it’s fire season and my heart

is weak as matches and a wick, I’ve given up the knives and
forks with embossed flowers, let’s divide this old house

in two, you must leave the space in my chest where you once
built a nest, please don’t ever try to hold me again with

the same hands, please know I’ve learned and unlearned cloud
formations, the sticky daisy patterns in the diner downtown

we are actors and I’m wearing pearls, an embroidered leaf dress
I let my body climb out of my resting suit, I let you have

stories about scars and tongue depressors, you learn to call
a heart a heart and the moon stays a moon but you won’t

know my face when it’s old; forgive me, for I have never been
the same woman twice.

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Sam Moe is the recipient of a 2023 St. Joe Community Foundation Poetry Fellowship from Longleaf Writers Conference. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Whale Road Review, The Indianapolis Review, Sundog Lit and others. Her poetry book, Heart Weeds, is out from Alien Buddha Press and her chapbook, Grief Birds, is out from Bullshit Lit in April ’23. Her full-length, Cicatrizing the Daughters, is forthcoming from FlowerSong Press.