Goldie

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My eyes are open, but I am looking at nothing. I stare at nothing for a long time. Sometimes tears move behind my eyes, feel for an exit. But they are like groundhogs too old to dig through.

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Goldie must be where I left everything. When she came, she brought everything along with her. When she left, I gave it all back without meaning to. She is in the ground and I have no artifact of her. Memories are not artifacts. When you are shot, the bullet is hot from combustion and friction but soon it cools to the same temperature as your body. She is in the ground.

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When I imagined moving here, sometimes I imagined a woman with me but mostly I did not. But I always imagined Goldie would be here, even before I knew her. She was here for a long time but she is not anymore.

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She knew that I was pretending. Chopping wood, repairing the house—she knew I am incompetent like a child but she taught me I could get smarter the more I tried. I thought I was getting smarter but now she is gone and I am stupider. Together we were smart. I should make a shrine to remember. I’m stupider now so memories aren’t hard and real like artifacts. A shrine is

more like an artifact.

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There are barriers between things. Even if you swallow something, there is a little film around it all the time and your body stays the same and the swallowed thing stays the same. So Goldie would swallow anything. I am too afraid; she is in the ground now; I can’t swallow anything.

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I can no longer attend. Sensations are already memories; always, already, memories; memories fading before they have even reached me.

 

She smelled the same for a while after so I kept my face pressed to to her neck but pretty quick she got cold and then what I was smelling wasn’t her but something else uninvited or maybe it was her leaving. She was so good at sniffing that I think she could smell into the past, or really smell the remnants of things that left. I tried to smell for her remnants but

eventually the things that remained weren’t her but something else.

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I was digging for a long time. I forgot I was digging for a while and maybe I dug for too long. It was dark and I was seeing the dirt with my fingers. She was an expert. When dirt got in her nose she could blow it out and keep going. Dirt stuck to my face under my eyes but I was not present for the part when I was crying. It is hard to be present for the whole thing, especially as I have gotten stupider, especially because everything is already memories. Stupidity sounds nice but it is not. You get overwhelmed, and when you’re overwhelmed you can’t be there for the

part where you’re crying because she is dead.

 

A smell is much better than a memory. It is even better than an artifact. But she is in the ground, and my sniffer isn’t strong like hers.

…

the one thing I never told her

gold is about the little birds

fell from the column out front mom said

suffering

and can you take care of them.

But killing is not taking care

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I am responsible for the things I kill

by smashing or by lack of care

I curl up nightly next to each

man, doggy, bird, bear