After “Remember” by Angie Mason

Remember some version of her still lives
in Kansas. Find her digging night crawlers
out from the bathtub planted in the backyard,
find her running under fruit trees,
cherries softly popping beneath the soles of her feet.
Remember to ask her to show you the fossils
she found, the old teeth, a box of animal tracks
cast in plaster.
Remember she’ll run straight to the fields
if you chase her. She’ll run ruts through the cemetery.
Remember that some days she’s an evacuated town
and you’re the only resident walking up and down
her streets.
Remember that when she hands you a wasp nest
blown open by an October wind
that it’s not to be mistaken for a peace offering.