Even Years and Continents Later

By Lauren Groff

You remember day; I remember night. You, our stink, a week since Corfu and salt still on our skin; I, the brown rime circling your ears, your neck. A pack of cards soft as tongues, the Alps falling in the window, our lightness that summer, our diet of bread and cherry jam. In our marrow lives the trochee of the train; when it returns to my dreams even now, I wake ready to run. The conductor who brought us coffee, bitter and black. Our greasy sleeping bags, full of sand. We both remember the boys, five of them, bursting in, spilling beer. We remember their ironed jeans. But you, the way the snow off the mountains dazzled their beautiful pale skin and I, awakening to darkness, one pulling you onto his lap. When you tell the story to our husbands over wine and duck, you say, eyes ablaze, We fought them off. I don’t say what I remember. When I open my mouth, only the mountains in the dark window, jagged moons, spill out.

This poem was originally published in Slake No. 4. To read all of the stories from that issue, purchase the issue or subscribe at shop.slake.la.