The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Beth Paulson

Erasure

You walk uphill in silent snow

between silhouettes of pines

where everything is ice-clear—

the creek, rimed rocks, frozen

branches of willows. So much                       

we think we know can be lost—

yesterday, this moment, 15 billion

brain cells, 100 billion stars

in the galaxy. Somewhere we store

the scent of wet wool, soup on gray

days, cracks in sidewalks, an old

wallpaper pattern. A child’s

mementos carried in her pocket

later require luggage, boxes for books,

a rental trailer pulled into a new town,                      

van across the desert to California

where a small bungalow holds

everything until it takes two stories,

eight rooms, so much space for

a future. How the years fill with

the work of living, energy and matter

constantly switching places partway

between love and death. Now downsize

the new word to keep what matters

most, you study Zillow for two

bedrooms, walk-in closet, close

market, read synapse retrieval slows,

a brain runs out of niches. This morning

you can’t recall where the snow-covered

path forks, why five planets align,

the name of a distant peak against

the blue. Two deer browsing lift heads,

your eyes meet briefly before the forest