Rosemary for Remembrance

As I was leaving
my father picked a sprig
and hesitated a moment
before placing it on my dashboard.
"Rosemary," he said,
"for remembrance."
The resin prickle slid its arms
around my neck
and cuddled my head
with every gust of the air vents.
And so I drove, and remembered.

The bunch and strain of the horse's muscles
beneath my legs as she threw me, the wind
in my eyes and blood in my nose,
the way she looked so proud
to have rid of me.
The green-eyed girl slumped, exhausted
over her guitar, wheat curls tangling
the strings, her shy mouth
as I kissed it. Stringing popcorn.
The rust stain on my cotton panties.
Learning to parallel park.

The winter we tramped through snow
what seemed like miles to fill our
knapsacks with groceries, how blissful
the baked goods section felt with heat
seeping through my boots.
The sweeping grey-blue of the Sound.
An old green quilt. The robin's egg
I crushed in my chubby toddler's palm
and my tears over the murder of
something so perfect. My grandmother's
paper hands as she died. The moon off
my legs floating in the lake. Skin
that smelled like warm towels
and corn husks, like sky.

My greatest loves, every painful turn
in the gut, each delicious shudder
of hope, every lie, every tingle of contact,
I remembered. I remembered.
The wall of green gave way on the road
at my right, petering out to sand.
I switched lanes to watch the sun melt
in peripheral, buttery,
over the curve of my shoulder.
I remembered.