Spring 2015
It Doesn't End Here
BY OLGA ABELLA
Nothing says thirst like hot air blowing across a dirt field
absent of what was there.
My mother leaves out what she won’t let herself remember, three
abortions, a daughter taking pills to die, a sister who set herself
on fire,
the husband who beat the dog almost
to death.
Her skin gathers in clumps at her elbows, under her eyes,
as she tells stories she wants to believe. It doesn’t matter if I listen
as I watch the sun twitch shadows
across the kitchen floor. Only the words as they sound their way
from the back of her mouth are what I want to remember. Only the voice
I will want to hear again and again one day.
Her memories, though, are dreams she made up, and if I listen
they will parch my throat with their never becoming.
Originally published in Mom Egg Review (Vol. 13. 2015)
