Will I Forget Your Face?
– Poetry by Barbara Dahlberg –
My memory has ratty holes
like the socks you wore to death.
I remember your green leather trench coat
how you’d burst into the Shaft theme song
when you’d catch my eye.
So funny, until you weren’t.
One Thanksgiving you sat outside on the steps
of your aunt’s house.
not sure of your welcome.
We didn’t know you were there.
You never came in.
You’d ghost me, before that was a thing,
disappear, run away.
Make me so angry I’d scare myself.
Now I wish I believed in ghosts
People said, he was a hard kid
you did your best.
a half-assed excuse.
I gave up, I did.
You were special, hard
but so are gems.
You were a shard of glass embedded
under my skin.
About the Author – Barbara Dahlberg
Barbara Dahlberg is a retired art teacher living in Pittsburgh. A 2001 Fellow with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project her work has appeared in US 1 Worksheets, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and Voices from the Attic among others. She won the Public Poetry Prize: Working in 2017 and her first book, Patsy Cline is on the Radio, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2018.
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