the name you can’t recall

I’d like to not write a poem about you.
or whoever I used to be.
the birds have a good idea
to move in a flock together,
a mass of life leaves little
for the universe to focus on.

life comes. it goes. in air or in the grass
in the park or soaring to Tabor at night.
will my life come? will it go?
rocks in dress pockets in deep lakes.
to disappear and tell no one.

no one sees me as I walk out to sit
before the sun sets to take a whole bottle
(sertraline or advil or whatever is bedside).

how fragile the body is after being so strong,
for so long. how strong the mind once it has chosen.
how strong the hands that can quiet the mind.
how fragile the beaks of birds and the mouths
of women called CUNT and BABE and BABY
in bed and on sidewalks and dead spit on buried
thrown from a car tumbled off the side of the Ortega Highway
dragged into lakes burned at stakes.

how fragile the skin and how strong the flame to burn.
no matter the cost, the end is always closer. is it worth the bleed?
is any of it? I’d like to stop bearing this. I’d like for no one to bear this.

we are the flock, the geese, or the crow
or the jay or even a molecule of water
glinting among pebbles. I’m the skull of
the second bird in my yard. I’m the bone buried.

we all bear too long and too alone.
how thick the wrist until it's cut.
it falls open like a page.

Megan Crayne is a queer poet and artist based out of the Pacific Northwest. She has an MS in Book Publishing, and design books and ebooks freelance. Recently, her work has been featured in Headline Poetry & Press and the upcoming COVID-19 Anthology from Train River Press. She writes a weekly poetry newsletter, which you can read on Substack. You can find her elsewhere: @megancrayne | www.megancrayne.com