By GABBY AVENA
After Jane Wong
I mean — I need a moment to move through — an image to see with — an orange on an altar, rotting on speedlapse — maybe, or the silver snow crest of a scar — that melts into skin — forming the film of forgetting — what I mean to say is — I need to keep my memories fresh — I need to hold such small grains of salt — pressed longingly against the tight mouth of the wound — for I need a moment — to remain pure over time — to stay where — it is, still — and unchanging, for I love best — I think, through encasement — like when you pin a butterfly to a board — and keep not the insect but the fact of its beauty — or when I write my sister into a story — and preserve not her life but the fact of her pain — I tell myself — what is preservation, if not care — and make it my profession — I make an archive of my mind — ’cause once I read that the more you reach — towards the past, the less it remains within your grasp — as your thoughts taint remembrance with their residue — so I tend to records as a gravekeeper — might clasp bodies through gloved hands —while turning them from their tombs — though my boss says that we are only weeding documents — as one does in a garden, turning the tired soil — to seed the fruits — of fresh delights — so perhaps what it means to keep a memory alive — is to let it die alongside you — let its skin bruise with time’s touch — until it brusts — open —
Writer | Gabby Avena ’25 | gavena25@amherst.edu
Editor | Leland Culver ’24 | gculver24@amherst.edu
Artist | Jacinta Smith ’25 | jsmith25@amherst.edu