Two by
Maura Way
So Long
Image and input overcame me. Deep in my gorges they are a pinhole camera of unwanted memories and then there’s the new ones and the sourced findings. Some bones in Devil’s Canyon, the quilt in the Neon, cornflowers and overalls and me in them atop Camel’s Back Park. Where do I store you where you’ll stay the same and not romanticize? How do I even begin to remember without a yielding, sickening betrayal? Very soon, when I am old, I will call all these things and you the wrong name and not know what self to be, what stories to tell, perhaps then, walking naked to Wreck’s Beach, I’ll be becalmed.
Creeping Morning Glory
She can’t stay awake for the harbingers,
but still looks for them at dawn. Smooth
bringers, smoke signals, wisdom on the
half-shell: the clear-headed fingers of
five year plans, next steps. She swiftly
falls into choice overload and retreats
into the moment as is so touted by t.v.
and books by people on t.v. Then the
laughter-loving sleep, without finishing
the flow chart. Tomorrow will be the
same. She read articles about slowing
down; finds no advice on how to speed
up. Maybe this ox-eyed woman has the
secret? In deep sleep there is forgetting.
In this sofa there are coins. She will not
be a juggernaut on wheels. First do no
harm then listen for the moonflowers.
Originally from Washington, DC, Maura Way lives in North Carolina, by way of Boise, Idaho. Her debut collection, Another Bungalow (Press 53), was released in 2017. She has been a schoolteacher since 1995, most recently at New Garden Friends in Greensboro.