B41
Collective Memory
Excerpt from poetry collection:Call it Awash: Stories and aphorisms.

Doris was alone at home

for the first time in eighteen days.
The silence was a placid lake.

She took in the smell of her empty home;
she could almost smell her self.
Every step she took
she expanded outward a little further
until she herself was emptied space.
The drapes were waxy and swaying
as the night air tiptoed in
and she said aloud,
“if only the world
could be so
empty,

sometimes.”
at that her heart ached

for those who’d left her alone that evening
until she remembered the chocolate she’d hidden
in the tallest cupboard.
all night long she did only her favorite things
until she melted softly into her fresh bedsheets.

Doris almost thought,
as she drifted off,
“Maybe this is the best I’ve ever felt in my life.
Possibly every thing I’ve previously done
has led to this feeling right now.
How awful would that be,”
Doris almost thought,
as she plunged into
the Mariana Trench.

Ruth Crimson-Forde