Poetry |

“As if Confusion Were Part Of It”

As If Confusion Were Part of It

 

 

She said she was tired of waiting, 84 years in a line

only she is standing in. She said there was beauty,

but not enough to be the point, like a distraction.

 

I remember standing in line by the river to be baptized.

The heat had soaked our clothes. There was singing

and honey locusts perfuming the riverbank. And flies,

 

oh the flies that stuck to our skin and our damp hair.

They lowered me into the water. I opened my eyes,

and it was all a green smear, and it stung.

 

She told me she once found a ring in the basement

of a Dillard’s, silver with a lone oval diamond,

and it glowed on the ground underneath a rack of dresses.

 

No, that can’t be, there was no basement. She said

she keeps waiting, and she isn’t sure if she should

move on herself or if someone will come get her.

 

She turned to look at me: One time, I was baptized

in a river. The water was like quick glass,

and I could see my toes as they went under,

 

then my skinny knees, my legs were so skinny then,

then the fringe on my Sunday dress, waving,

all waving to me as I dipped beneath the surface.

Contributor
John Moessner

John Moessner received his MFA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2018. He works as a legal writer for an immigration law firm. His poems have appeared or will appear in Arts & Letters, CommonwealNew Ohio Review, North American Review, and Poet Lore


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