The ending is not new, yet still

I hesitate to face the remains

of time resurfacing as I clean

out closed drawers, sort through

sealed attic boxes.

 

Framed photographs, love notes, cards

of congratulations—the ephemera

that summons nostalgia

unwanted, of facing

cancer in our twenties, of climbing

the Rockies, of August walks

for ice cream, Sunday morning

cross wording.

 

Before activities turned

solitary, extended, marathon

running, teaching, writing, a new

disease, across distance, words no

longer heard the same, if at all,

and the thought of searching

for words together became

unthinkable.

 

Ticket stubs, birthday greetings, gifts inscribed

with best wishes—the enduring ephemera

that no longer holds a place, uneasy

within my heart, vestiges of love

outgrown yet still mourned,

accumulated testaments

to twenty years.

 

Ann E. Wallace, PhD, originally hails from a small town in coastal Massachusetts, but she moved to New Jersey, where she works as an Associate Professor of English at New Jersey City University, more than twenty years ago. She writes about traumatic memory, loss, and illness, as well as on her teaching practices within the composition classroom. Her work has recently appeared in Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, WordGathering, The Literary Nest, Coldnoon,             Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Eunoia Review, and Mothers Always Write.

Connect with Ann:

• on Twitter @annwlace409 
• on LinkedIn @ ann-e-wallace-phd-63347b25
• on Facebook @ ann.wallace1