Letter from Your Unwritten Poem

by Anastasia Vassos

  
I’m your last thought
your head on the pillow
your first breath
when you wake
having forgotten me—
 
the metaphor mislaid
when you’re lost in traffic
when you miss
the turn at the library.
Oh, I know—I vanish
 
if you don’t write me down
right away—that’s my magic.
I mean, you’re reading
this now, aren’t you?
I lurk
 
in the quiet shadow
behind your eyes
in Ratushinskaya’s
bars of soap,
the Gulag,
matchsticks carving
her words
before she washed
her hands—
 
in Emily’s
apron pocket
pencil stub
torn envelopes
at the ready.
 
Tell me what
you’re afraid of.
I am everywhere.
 
Find me in the sound
of waves stripping
the shore, the expanse
where grain fields bend
and groan in the wind.
 
I remember it all:
your parents
how they lived and died
the rhythms of your body
as you blossomed and aged
the time you drove drunk
the time you quit smoking
the day you got the diagnosis
those nights you gave up on me
nights you couldn’t sleep
worried about some bull shit.
 
Yes, don’t look at me like that
I know how to swear.


* * * * *

Anastasia Vassos is the author of Nostos (Kelsay Books, 2023) and Nike Adjusting Her Sandal (Nixes Mate, 2021). Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets. Find her work in RHINO, Whale Road Review, Thrush, Lily Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Off the Grid, and elsewhere. She is a reader for Lily Poetry Review, speaks three languages, and lives in Boston.