It was the time I could and couldn’t (a villanelle) ~ poetry by Samantha Moe

It was the time I could and couldn’t (a villanelle)

You know how this goes. You knew this was coming. Soon, evening
and the filly is in the dirt pit. And my feelings are spiraling out of control
I thought I wasn’t my father’s daughter until I disappointed you again.

I think I will wear what I can’t say as rose thorns around my singing
hands and wrists. The lizards in your backyard are made of glass. Honey,
you know how this goes. You knew this was storm season. Soon, endings,

crotaphytidae and the thought of telling you I’m scared. Yet, wings.
Scarlet macaws who pick away at my fingers. I’m trying to control
the thought of being his daughter. My love, I’ll disappoint you again.

My mother says she misses me. She breaks things. Loves. Cries. Flings
the deep, old wound out the window. This metaphor is a lie. A bunny
of mine once said, you know how this goes. You knew this story. Sing

me one about how we survive. I’m a bad friend. I’m mourning my strings
of blood, my past, wrist-flood, it’s over now. The harm. The years. The foal
says, you’re not his responsibility. Old, red bloom. Girl, not this again.

I want to stand under dogwood trees with you, just to talk. The string
of the trigger are foam. All I have left for you are repetitions. Holes
in my clothes and you know how this goes, know the words. Soon, sing
a different story of feathers and daughters. Evening is ending again.

Sam Moe is the author of Cicatrizing the Daughters (FlowerSong Press, Winter 2024), Grief Birds (BS Lit, 2023), Heart Weeds (Alien Buddha Press 2022), and the chapbook Animal Heart (Harvard Square Press 2024). Her short story collection, I Might Trust You is forthcoming from Experiments in Fiction (Winter 2024). She has been accepted to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (2024) and received fellowships from the Longleaf Writer’s Conference and the Key West Literary Seminar, and Château d’Orquevaux.