Katie Kemple: “Rearview”
REARVIEW
The new car has a new backup camera
and I can’t quite articulate or differentiate
what makes the view foreign to me now
of my garage as I back into it. It’s as if
these were someone else’s beach chairs,
paint crusted craft table and standing desk.
Someone else’s skeleton dressed up in
a blue yarn necklace and gold cowboy hat
I gave to my sister on her 40th birthday.
Some other woman’s husband’s whiteboard
filled with Sharpie ideations. It’s like
looking through the new backup camera
I’m seeing the off brand me. Hollywood’s
rendition of my life in reverse. Is this how
you see my life? The golden rectangle
angles the frame that allows me to reenter
the world I left. And I can’t recall what
the other world looked like anymore.
They say you can never go back. I backup
into the empty path, hold my skeleton’s hand,
tip his hat and accept our new life together.
Katie Kemple has work appearing or forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Little Patuxent Review, South Carolina Review, Rattle, Rust & Moth, SOFTBLOW, Chestnut Review, Citron Review, and Whale Road Review.