Preservation
- Preservation
The only things remaining were things we kept in jars. The house smelled like library novels & coming home to a person. We hardly slept
and didn’t seem to need it. We were adept at disorder. Stacked books could barely stand beside the bed. What remained: things we kept
nailing to walls: a city map where traffic leapt in the streets; photograph of your father — a candid shot. He is young, thin. We hardly slept
in summer months when winged things crept in the windows. Or woke us with landing, stunned taps against the glass. Things we kept
lined our windowsills in jars: shallow depths of small things we found on walks, handful of stones we rubbed soft. We hardly slept
but woke whole afternoons: your face windswept and out of order; ocean lapping up the sand. The only things that remain are things we kept coming home to. Place where memory slept. [End Page 2]
Julia Koets is currently a PhD student in creative writing and literature at the University of Cincinnati. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as Indiana Review, the Los Angeles Review, and the Carolina Quarterly. Her first book of poetry, Hold Like Owls, was published in 2012.
