Today's poem is by Theodora Ziolkowski

That morning, he kept his distance: blackout curtains, no breakfast
       

Wind howled through the long
dark throat of the fraternity.

Go on, get up, said the boy.

In the bathroom, my breath made frost.
Some girl's lipstick streaked the tile
& beer bottles lined the sink.

Artwork of my cocktail dress on the floor:
clot of black poppies

at the bottom of a pond.

Push the body to recover
a recognizable rhythm
& its breath evens:

mascara to lashes, my hand shaking—
Sometimes memories worth forgetting

turn into stories that want

different endings.
Like the part when I zipped up
my boots & the frat door

shut like a jaw. Or like how after
I climbed the frozen hill to campus

to dance before a class

that studied the way I moved
my bruised body,
the mirror laughed

back my choreography.
Can a mind that fails to recall

also belong to a body

that remembers everything?
Years after, & it doesn't matter

if I wake beside

a man who loves me.
When I least expect it,

I rise as that same

girl on a sour mattress,
her body responding to a ghost

of that boy's hard gaze.

Copyright © 2025 Theodora Ziolkowski All rights reserved
from Ghostlit
Texas Review Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission