Poetry by Katharine Blair

               ​Jessica Branstetter CC



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Moncur Park, 2015


I see you again at a Movie in the Park just off Coxwell. Something about a talking bird.
I meet your daughter, her first name the middle of my eldest, and try to bury the sound of it in your mouth.
I don’t know yet that you’ll do it again. In two years, a son, without knowing, for the one I’m carrying now.
Sometimes the universe tries too hard, I’ll tell myself when I find out.

An hour later we’re close enough to touch, our restless littles tucked side by side into swings.
Your daughter. My son. Drunk on the lateness of the hour, legs kicking and voices wild.
We’re making small talk and I hate it.
I used to know your dreams.

I miss a question, lost in the afternoon we broke into my father’s house and stole back my things.
How we left the Sendak but pushed our luck to find pictures of my sisters.
I want to tell you I still have them.
The pictures and the sisters.
I want to tell you that some people fight for the things they love.

I love the beard.
I want to say that too, but we’re too careful at this distance.
Twenty years and four kids between us and I miss your hands,
the warmth of your father’s pipe,
your sister who was kind to me in ways it took me years to understand.

I want to say I’m sorry for dragging you into it. Into me.
I want to tell you I didn’t get any warning either.
The way I remember that night there was you and the loft bed and the hash we got from Tim,
our standard coke bottle bong, hole melted through with one of the Marlboros you...do you still?
No, wait. Nevermind. I’m getting lost again.

My father at the door. Your mother, calm as ever. Your name, then mine, then the cold slap of January.
Daddy’s voice, false and full of concern then flat and even as he made the pivot from embarrassment to anger.
His hair, those big angelic curls, all aglow in the light of the gas station parking lot where he set his terms and I walked away.
The second and last woman to ever say no to him.
My father, defeated and confused, on the street outside my mothers house.
And me. Stepping inside. Still thinking about you.

Your kid is eating sand when I come to. Mine looking on, wide eyed and full of ideas.
It’s clear we’ve been talking but I’ve got no idea what’s been said.
Both kids need bed but I can't bring myself to leave so I suggest a game.
You turn to face me and all of a sudden I want to tell you your wife is too pretty for you but it won’t come out right, and anyway.
Tangents again. I always did get muddled up when we were this close.

I know I wasn’t the same after. I can see that from here.
He let me go so easily and I just needed to know you wouldn’t do that too.
I want to say I’m grateful. For the love and the letting me stay and for the leaving too.
I was a mess and you were a child and I know that now.
I know that it was me that made all of it  happen.
Losing him. Losing you.

I want to say I forgive you now and I forgive me too.
That there is no way to see your life clearly while you’re still living it.
I want to say you had, have, beautiful hands.
Big and rough, and strong for me before I knew I could be that too.
Instead I say, ‘I’m so glad you’re happy’.
And you answer, I think.
The movie ends and your daughter is calling and I let you go again.


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Katharine Blair is a poet, writer, and aspiring hermit currently based in California. Grateful to have entered her invisible years, Katharine is most interested in the intersections of childhood trauma, personal understandings of identity, and mental health.

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