Three Poems by Diana Wilkins

I am struggling to remember this.

I am defeating my self, my memory-

Scars and worn tissue reopened

Skinned knees,

Campfire burns,

Be careful- too hot for comfort

The smells of nail polish, hot

summer afternoons- Ripe and ready

There are wooded trails where we can re-explore this.

We sleep in flooded tents, soggy socks

and sleeping bags that don’t zipper

We rummage for quarters to operate the showers-

Slippery slopes, soap off the dirt like a mirror so

I can see the reflection.

There is still bread crust left inside the metal holders,

charcoal burnt blueberry filling-

The night before’s remnants on young tongues

This is still unclear-

I remember the bike trails to the beach,

Steep hill, challenging pine needles,

burnt out rubber tires on an old 10-speed.

We used to take bets on who could make

the jump. I have no memory of clearing it

or what the beach looked like- washed away

like old stones, there was a camper

smells of faint urine,

an unaccustomed nose and

a craving to be loved.

I thrived for these woods.

Cheeseburgers and hotdogs on

old Thurman gas grills,

Kool-aid and white bread-

This memory is of things I never got at home,

things I learned to call home.

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winter creeps into my bones
inches its grey across the tips
of my typewriter, keys wanting
to clank into an abyss of her

longing for the moments that we
held into, like infinite sand
sifting through fingers, time
slips away into the night
of her moon, the axis not quite

spinning, out of story and poem
my hands cannot type this line
fast enough, like seasons change
we begin to renew, plant the experiences
of a winter past and soothe ourselves

into the cold night
of snow and quiet
of solstice and river.

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I am delicate sun/ soil unearthed/ the in-between of novel and binding glue/ stuck in a wave of punctuation/ eternal light cascades/ my skin/ pale/ story-telling intricate/ writing continents/ across my inner arms/ travel home/ to the place where I exist/ exit the has been/ coordinate the beauty/ the inner layer/ draw the map/ do not erase