Megan Wildhood is a cyclist, saxophonist, gym enthusiast, cat lover and writer whose work has appeared in her poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017), her full-length poetry collection Bowed As If Laden With Snow (Cornerstone Press, May 2023) as well as Mad in America, The Sun and elsewhere. You can learn more about her at meganwildhood.com.
But It Won’t Keep Out The Dogs
In the graygreen morning, I watch myself
suit up. I cannot convince her in time
that the barrier she dons is impermeable.
Or maybe this is what she wants: enclosure
that mimes safety because what’s the
difference if you can’t have anything real?
And now she can’t hear me. She is me
if I never knew me. She got this suit
from Mom, and she thinks it will
make Mom love me. It keeps out everything:
joy, since that’s shameful;
love, since that will end.
I didn’t know about the suit for decades.
I thought I was just late to the self-actualization hang.
I found the suit when a third friendship
Chernobyled in the same way the first two had,
even though I evacuated myself to save them.
That’s the only way I have ever been able to fit into
the suit. The suit, though, is not for protection.
I see now this is why I have what I have.
Nothing. Because it keeps out everything.
But she can’t hear me.
© Megan Wildhood