Edith

And Lot's wife did look back....and I love her for that, because it was so human. - Kurt Vonnegut

What do you remember?

the stench of burning hair

a chlorine yellow haze

disobedience of the screen door

slam of my backward glance

Stand closer listen

to the rasp of my breath

as I become salt taste

the mineral of my fingertips

crystals sharp on your tongue

It’s not too late to turn back

watch me bid farewell

to my daughters

their bright bodies twisting

in the eucalyptus

I am here with the linens still damp

my palms frayed lace deadly

as an apricot kernel unblinking

as a lamp post

writing about you

with my eyelashes watching

as you disappear

across a blazing horizon

What do you remember?

 Rebecca Faulkner is a London-born poet based in Brooklyn. The author of Permit Me to Write My Own Ending, (Write Bloody Press, 2023) her work appears in New York Quarterly, Solstice Magazine, The Maine Review, CALYX Press, Berkeley Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is a 2023 poetry recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, the 2022 winner of Sand Hills Literary Magazine’s National Poetry Contest, and the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Prometheus Unbound Poetry Competition. Rebecca was a 2021 Poetry Fellow at the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. She holds a BA in English Literature & Theatre Studies from the University of Leeds, and a Ph.D. from the University of London. She is currently at work on her second collection of poetry, exploring female identity and artistic endeavor.