Rebecca Faulkner

Edith

And Lot’s wife did look back….and I love her for that, because it was so human.
Kurt Vonnegut

What do you remember?

the stench of burning hair
               a chlorine yellow haze
disobedience of the screen door
slam of my backward glance

Stand closer      listen

to the rasp of my breath
as I become salt            taste
the mineral of my fingertips
crystals sharp on your tongue

It’s not too late to turn back

watch me bid farewell
              to my daughters
their bright bodies twisting
in the eucalyptus

I am here with the linens still damp
my palms frayed lace     deadly
as an apricot kernel      unblinking
as a lamp post

writing about you
with my eyelashes.     watching
                 as you disappear
across a blazing horizon

What do you remember?

I remember my name
& how it felt
to lose you

 

Rebecca Faulkner is a London-born poet based in Brooklyn. The author of Permit Me to Write My Own Ending (Write Bloody Publishing, 2023) her work appears in New York Quarterly, The Maine Review, The Poetry Society of New York, CALYX Press, Berkeley Poetry Review and elsewhere. She is a 2023 poetry recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, the winner of Black Fox Literary Magazine’s 2023 Writing Contest, and the 2022 winner of Sand Hills Literary Magazine’s National Poetry Contest. Rebecca was a 2021 Poetry Fellow at the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. She holds a BA in English Literature & Theatre Studies from the University of Leeds, an MA in Performance Studies from NYU, and a Ph.D. from the University of London. She is currently at work on her second collection of poetry, exploring female identity and artistic endeavor. www.rebeccafaulknerpoet.com