Anaphor for a Reckoning

-Beth Rowley

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I wish I could remember your mandorla eyes,

your crescent nose and, just beneath,

your lips shaping the soft air in Serena,

then your jaw, an exquisite line –

your face was a sacred geometry and

your body a map of Africa. I wish I could remember

how you lay still like a breathing statue that night in

September five years ago – how your hands were

cold and wet when I placed them on my chest –

how my imagination was tied to a man

who dimmed with the stars into

useless dawn. I wish I could remember

how we made a sacrifice in water,

and I was wholly yours for a moment –

holy enough to swim with the saints,

to discern your voice in a native paradise.

I wish I could remember your girlfriend back home,

her name, her age, her occupation –

how your religion and state compelled you

both to hide in the cathedral of hope,

the breath of no breaths. I wish I could

remember that now we all three wake up

in the expansive night, looking for a reckoning,

teasing our memories on what is lost versus what is left.