Hannah Bessinger
Fugue
I remember the sunset pooling into the hollows
of your collarbones.
Your sweater was plum-colored and torn
near the neck.
I could hear the beat of flywings
after you left me
alone on our green porch swing at dusk. Every time
I returned,
I watched their black bodies gleaming in the air
like bits of iron.
I remember our mother crumpling onto the kitchen
floor. The phone’s
battery falling out and hitting the tile.
The kids next door got a BB gun for Christmas. The older
one shot a ring-necked dove.
Our cat dragged it to the porch, and I found it the next
morning,
its white feathers piercing the air.
The flies had settled into the holes in its body.
You were dressed in purple when they buried you.
I felt October folding into itself
like a paper boat,
the leaves spinning madly towards the earth.
The hard wood of the piano bench
etched lines into my thighs.
I played only Bach the entire year. By the end
I did not think,
and my hands moved from memory
through the pages of counterpoint,
one melody announcing itself to the world
with my left hand,
the other curling into itself at first, then rising,
lifting its voice to meet the air,
the night, the sky.
Hannah Bessinger is an MFA student at North Carolina State University.
Return to January 2015 Edition
I remember the sunset pooling into the hollows
of your collarbones.
Your sweater was plum-colored and torn
near the neck.
I could hear the beat of flywings
after you left me
alone on our green porch swing at dusk. Every time
I returned,
I watched their black bodies gleaming in the air
like bits of iron.
I remember our mother crumpling onto the kitchen
floor. The phone’s
battery falling out and hitting the tile.
The kids next door got a BB gun for Christmas. The older
one shot a ring-necked dove.
Our cat dragged it to the porch, and I found it the next
morning,
its white feathers piercing the air.
The flies had settled into the holes in its body.
You were dressed in purple when they buried you.
I felt October folding into itself
like a paper boat,
the leaves spinning madly towards the earth.
The hard wood of the piano bench
etched lines into my thighs.
I played only Bach the entire year. By the end
I did not think,
and my hands moved from memory
through the pages of counterpoint,
one melody announcing itself to the world
with my left hand,
the other curling into itself at first, then rising,
lifting its voice to meet the air,
the night, the sky.
Hannah Bessinger is an MFA student at North Carolina State University.
Return to January 2015 Edition