Sofia Fall

The Moth

Forget what it smelled like mixing
instant coffee crystals into hot water
and what the steam did to the windows
on the third floor. Forget how often

there was snow on Zobor Hill and why
it felt like almost always when it was
more like almost never. Forget which ruins
I first climbed to and if I was alone

or if we were together. Forget
the handle and its twelfth-century brass. If
we turned it. What was or what was not
hoarded behind it. Forget the wine bottle

we opened with a coat hanger
in Horný Smokovec, and the wine
tasted impetuous, brash. How our wet socks
hung like sentinels on the line. What

color the fog was the morning
after. Forget how later I said Horný
Smokovec to the dull Ambassador
at American Thanksgiving

and you laughed. Forget the plague
monuments and how many dead
and when. Forget the wooden statues
and the curdled apples and the gardens.

Forget what any of it felt like—
the trains with their thick warped
windows and sitting there next to you.
Threads of your pale hair stuck

to the glass. Like in May the moth
that wouldn’t move from the elevator
buttons. It’s thin, fine wings. How I reached
out. How I almost pressed it.

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Sofia Fall is a writer from Michigan. Her work has been published in the anthology collection Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems About Climate Change in the U.S. and The Allegheny Review, where she was the recipient of the 2018 Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Program and the Hopwood Foundation. She has a BA in English and Program in the Environment from the University of Michigan and an MA in Climate & Society from Columbia University.