Litany of Things I Can’t Remember – Milo Gallagher

Cornsilk, catbird, busted knee,

train song, gutter boats, flickering

birch, pebble ache, cricketflight,

mud suck, sewing needles lost in

the sheets, china shards, long hair,

algae light, baby brother, neighbor

dog with a pinecone in its mouth,

neighbor man who showed his dick

to my mom, violet talcum, Pepto

Bismol, peeling blue wallpaper,

lipstick smell, head lice, holly

berries, cosmic bowling, two or

three funerals, the name of those

flowers those little white ones

that come out first thing in the

spring, uncle’s hand on my thigh

under the table, frog heart beating

fast under thin skin in a cupped palm,

how when I played with dolls we

were always running from disaster