Recollection
by Sloane Scott
I never made it to Torreón
or saw their faces in the valley.
When I took my cello
to Hillsboro, Missouri, and sung
for Hector, he wept, and I stopped needing
forgiveness. When he passed,
I put his bolo tie on and never took it off.
Can I go back to his snail collection
in the old house to look for clues?
No, the shells were scattered
in the forest (as if that were proper
and not tragic). It is too hard
in this body that expresses itself
through disaster. I want to know why
and, first, why the musclewood tree
is like that? Its catkin flowers
revealing its birch origin.
Something is stronger than me –
the ordinary rocks we collected,
our slow walks to nowhere,
the brawny tree bent over our faces.
Look, I couldn’t play
the cello forever. One day I laid
it down and let it all rest.
I asked him to tell me the story
of the tarantula migration
in Francisco Villa. The future
spun out – profuse with longing,
content to suffer.
Sloane Scott (she/they) is a Missouri poet studying forestry. Their work has been featured in Hooligan Magazine, trampset, and elsewhere.