I Can't Believe You Actually Died
-after The Microphones "I Can't Believe You Actually Died"
by Jessamyn Wolff
It wasn’t real until mom and I were in your apartment
and seeing for the first time the soot wilted against
the kitchen walls, smeared across the microwave and
stove, while that horrible smoky smell sank into every
fiber of our clothes, so much that we washed them
the minute we got home, after we’d put our armfuls
of you in a heap on the table, drawings, your laptop,
Buddhas, one with its head broken off, something that
would’ve made me think of you, even if it wasn’t lying
in the living room with the dishes you threw, with
the kicked-in shelf, the sharp gems of your broken
window dotting the carpet. And when I showed dad
the Buddha, its cropped, shiny-black neck like a dark
tear in my hands, he took a sharp inhale before saying
Jessamyn, your hair smells like fire.
About the Author
Jessamyn Wolff is a poet and visual artist from West Michigan, currently in the last year of her MFA program the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her work has appeared in Hanging Loose Press, Mortar Magazine, Porkbelly Press, Conception Arts Show, and will soon be featured in both Storm of Blue Press and The Boston Globe's 'My Instagram' column come winter 2019.