The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Wolves in Shells by Kimberly Ann Priest

---

Because Memory, I Am Told, Is Unreliable—

Lie, just a little, about the color of the grass, the quality of sky,
the air and whether it is breathable. For instance

that house across the street is not broken down yet,
its sockets retaining the same panes of glass it was born with

just like the eyes we keep forever if we can—aging,
but the same. Tell me it isn’t February and colder

than usual. Don’t explain to my soul beauty;
I don’t want to know. I want to believe that this small town

is a place I’d stay forever. That the men
smoking outside of the halfway house don’t scare me much—

or intrigue me some because I am also halfway.
That after years of being named the offender by my abuser

[the man from whom I’m still running], I’m not confused
concerning the snow falling today and whether

it is desirable for its whiteness and coolness on my face,
or if I am tired of its falling. I only know how long

I’ve been tumbling into grief and too many questions—
a disassociation from every present moment into an obscure past.

The house across the street invites workers for remodeling;
the coffee shop in town makes breakfast sandwiches I like.

---