poem

“All that you remember must be written down,” so I’m writing it down:

by Abigail Rudibaugh

after Carolyn Forché

The neon pink flash when the landline rang. Pinball on the Dos computer. Bathroom fan to keep the yellow fish wallpaper from peeling. The maple’s samaras staked like ornaments all over the back lawn. The burn in the legs biking up the hill to the pool. The 25 cents for Swedish fish in a brown paper bag. My name on the loudspeaker because my mom called—it was time to come home. My second-grade teacher tanning two lawn chairs down, who rotated her position to follow the sun. The time she drove me to Friendly’s after school for ice cream as a treat for being the best speller in class. Handmade button magnets pinning up my work. Another kid cuisine night with the 7 o’clock news. Our couch with the pastel pillows Mom sewed upstairs with my grandmother’s sewing machine. I’d crawl upstairs when I couldn’t sleep. Sleep in the king between Mom and Dad instead of my heated waterbed. My sister came to my room instead. We would lie awake and watch the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to my popcorn ceiling by putty. Connect each to make our own personalized constellations. Believed, like any astrologist would, they had something to tell us.

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Abigail Rudibaugh is a writer and teacher. Her writing has been published in Pensworth Literary Journal, WAAC Literary Magazine, and Fathom Magazine. She calls Cincinnati, Ohio, home with her husband and two daughters.