Living for Something Other Than Your Name on My Phone
Virginia Kane | Poetry
Lucy dying fabric yellow on our stovetop with turmeric root. How in a packed film screening, I
could tell which laugh was Mabel’s. My godmother reviving the swiss cheese vine I killed last
May. Sarah reading love poems on the beach in California. My father dedicating an old-growth
forest in Ohio. Molly, high in Minnesota, crying for the first time in a year when she saw the
Northern Lights. I think of Ky after top surgery recreating the nudes he took in high school.
Braiding Eva’s hair shoulder-to-shoulder on my pink bedspread. Oliver in my shotgun seat
saying I really shouldn’t tell you this, then telling me the gossip anyway. Tariq and Gabby have
loved each other for six years. Lily thought of me when the pastel turtleneck shrunk too small
for her. Henry picked me up and threw me over their shoulder when I bet against them doing
it. For three months without cell service, Jess mailed me letters from Wyoming. That one warm
afternoon in November where Sophia stripped naked and plunged into the Swannanoa. Or the
morning after we camped at the overlook when Jack let me sleep on a mattress in his trunk
while he drove the parkway home. If nothing else, how much kinder I am to my body than I
was at seventeen. My mother on the phone, honest about last year. There will be more
afternoons with Audrey in the thrift stores of our hometown. Natalia and I will never run out
of ways to analyze our exes. And my little sister will stay so much smarter than me. And I
haven’t complimented Lydia’s eyelashes enough. I haven’t told Dill they’re a genius with the
words that will make them believe it. In my palm, a handful of cherry tomatoes Ana brought
me from her garden. My refrigerator door cluttered with colored pencil sketches from the girl I
nanny. To think I took this for granted. The way you took me for granted. I could do anything
now. I could drive to Tennessee. I could forget you, cool of your cheekbone on my chest while
you slept and I worried till dawn over your comfort. For a moment, you had me forgetting love
was supposed to be a lighthearted thing.
could tell which laugh was Mabel’s. My godmother reviving the swiss cheese vine I killed last
May. Sarah reading love poems on the beach in California. My father dedicating an old-growth
forest in Ohio. Molly, high in Minnesota, crying for the first time in a year when she saw the
Northern Lights. I think of Ky after top surgery recreating the nudes he took in high school.
Braiding Eva’s hair shoulder-to-shoulder on my pink bedspread. Oliver in my shotgun seat
saying I really shouldn’t tell you this, then telling me the gossip anyway. Tariq and Gabby have
loved each other for six years. Lily thought of me when the pastel turtleneck shrunk too small
for her. Henry picked me up and threw me over their shoulder when I bet against them doing
it. For three months without cell service, Jess mailed me letters from Wyoming. That one warm
afternoon in November where Sophia stripped naked and plunged into the Swannanoa. Or the
morning after we camped at the overlook when Jack let me sleep on a mattress in his trunk
while he drove the parkway home. If nothing else, how much kinder I am to my body than I
was at seventeen. My mother on the phone, honest about last year. There will be more
afternoons with Audrey in the thrift stores of our hometown. Natalia and I will never run out
of ways to analyze our exes. And my little sister will stay so much smarter than me. And I
haven’t complimented Lydia’s eyelashes enough. I haven’t told Dill they’re a genius with the
words that will make them believe it. In my palm, a handful of cherry tomatoes Ana brought
me from her garden. My refrigerator door cluttered with colored pencil sketches from the girl I
nanny. To think I took this for granted. The way you took me for granted. I could do anything
now. I could drive to Tennessee. I could forget you, cool of your cheekbone on my chest while
you slept and I worried till dawn over your comfort. For a moment, you had me forgetting love
was supposed to be a lighthearted thing.
Virginia Kane is a poet and essayist. Her work has appeared in them., The Adroit Journal, Poet Lore, The Baltimore Review, MAYDAY, and on the Ours Poetica web series. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, where she works at one store that sells new books and one store that sells used books.