I’ve started carefully extracting you
from family photos. Slice/slash.
Thankfully scissors. Thankfully fire
for a last labour of lost love, I blacken
your aching silhouette ‘til
that one shot becomes a queen sized bed,
my small frame curled
against a shapeless ghost.
Do you know the one?
Call it foreshadowing:
I’m asleep, feeling safe.
Your eyes are open, already
contemplating the door.
You’re eradicated by year.
Just three more
photos and your name
won’t even prompt a flinch.
Brace for erasure.
Your legacy is a void,
Stirring.
Rachael Cain lives in Nogojiwanong-Peterborough, Ontario. Her writing has appeared in EVENT, CV2, League of Canadian Poets: Poetry Pause, and elsewhere. She was recently awarded a fellowship with Brooklyn Poets.
