Atonement II

The dirt softens around your body as I wring your socks
in the bathroom sink for the third time, the stains

not lifting, my fingers wrinkling in green soap.
It’s almost your birthday again. I dream of you

in daytime, eyes open, somewhere in Spain. I repeat
your stories to strangers in line at the grocery store

or waiting for the bus. The trains try to soothe me,
the low moan of horn, freight shivering in their cars,

and everyone here wants to talk about my commute,
the impending forecast: stories of objects

and safety. I want to tell them about what your voice
sounded like after you smoked three cigarettes in a row,

and the only time you ever held my hand, shivering.
It’s made up. It never happened. I put you to bed, I woke

you up, I fell asleep on your arm. Was it a hand on my 
chest or the alarm? Call it the sort of morning where

I search for my keys, ten minutes late, my fingers
turning over books and unopened mail, replaying

all the phone calls. A vase drops from my nightstand
to the hardwood floor, not breaking—and closing my

eyes, the keys were in my left hand the whole time.

JESS KIM

Jess Kim is a New England-based poet who has been published in Yellow Chair Review, at wherewithal press, and in the anthology Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves: A Contemporary Anthology of Asian American Women’s Poetry (Deep Bowl Press, 2008).