I tour the wax museum of my younger selves and forgive her
the girl
at the school gate, children in pleated uniform, space of an eight-year-old, and three
friends who stopped holding her chapped hands
at the bookstore window, silhouette of a mustached man who broomed children out
by the boy-pulled cart, eyes of a bearded man who watched her eat ice cream from across
the street
with her legs folded in a chair, in a closet, in the driveway, on smooth floors
alone in a building for a week, Lifetime movies of failed romance in the lit windowpanes
walking to the full moon by the bamboo plants, never touching the scars
with three hearts inside of her, the drums, and the earthquake
who sang the verses in the dawn, the hills, her handwoven hat that held mist
the woman
in the class with the laughing professor, spectacles sliding off
in the museum of stolen things she could have once touched
in the car, the man in ten gallon filled her seats with truck headlights in a parking lot of
potholes
in the gurney, three nurses who forgot to remove her stained clothes from the hook
at the desk, men in corduroy who asked her to fill her years in a cardboard box
with the infant inside the toddler with the girl who was always afraid of stairs
the incarnation of all her lives in her veins and the rivers leaving
the songs over foam of dish soap clouds in the kitchen window cherry tree breaking sky into
shards
at the school gate, children in pleated uniform, space of an eight-year-old, and three
friends who stopped holding her chapped hands
at the bookstore window, silhouette of a mustached man who broomed children out
by the boy-pulled cart, eyes of a bearded man who watched her eat ice cream from across
the street
with her legs folded in a chair, in a closet, in the driveway, on smooth floors
alone in a building for a week, Lifetime movies of failed romance in the lit windowpanes
walking to the full moon by the bamboo plants, never touching the scars
with three hearts inside of her, the drums, and the earthquake
who sang the verses in the dawn, the hills, her handwoven hat that held mist
the woman
in the class with the laughing professor, spectacles sliding off
in the museum of stolen things she could have once touched
in the car, the man in ten gallon filled her seats with truck headlights in a parking lot of
potholes
in the gurney, three nurses who forgot to remove her stained clothes from the hook
at the desk, men in corduroy who asked her to fill her years in a cardboard box
with the infant inside the toddler with the girl who was always afraid of stairs
the incarnation of all her lives in her veins and the rivers leaving
the songs over foam of dish soap clouds in the kitchen window cherry tree breaking sky into
shards
Nepal-born Anuja Ghimire writes poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction. She is the author of Kathmandu (Unsolicited Press, 2020) and fable-weavers (Ethel Zine, 2022), and is a Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. Her work has found homes in print and online journals and anthologies in Nepal, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, India, and Bangladesh. She reads poetry for Up the Staircase Quarterly and enjoys teaching poetry to children in summer camps. She works as a senior publisher in an online learning company and lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and two children.
Art: Pink Gloves, oil on canvas, Paulina Swietliczko