Saturday 30 November 2019


No One Remembers the Girl

by Tobi Alfier


For 72 seconds in a long long life she wore
the crown of poppies he placed in her hair
as they danced.

She knew she was only borrowing him,
taking a man that wasn’t hers to take.

He was so in love with her, the smell of her neck,
their lovemaking, even just holding her wrist to his lips—
he did not want to live without her.
She completed him.

She knew she would move on to be that girl—
a scent rarely wakened and never thought of,
growing older, wearing the grace of knowing him
like exquisite embroidery on a somber night’s cloak.


* * * * *

Tobi Alfier is a multiple Pushcart nominee and multiple Best of the Net nominee. Both “Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies” and a reprint of “Sanity Among the Wildflowers” were published by Cholla Needles Press. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).

3 comments:

  1. These few perfect words awakened something in me.

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    Replies
    1. Matthew, thank you so very much. Your words mean a lot to me. t.

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  2. I'm having such ambivalent and varying emotions in response to this poem. Yearning, nostalgia, loss, realism among them. Beautiful poem!

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