You want to remember the world
with you in it, how it’s easy to
forget that you’re here if no one’s
speaking your name. In a cemetery,
you saw how rain erodes each name
from stone until nothing remains,
how even language dies. You want
to remember the world with you
in it. You find a pencil and scrawl
your name onto rocks beside you.
You’re underground. The walls
are heather gray under yellow
beams of candlelight. The world
looks melted, pale fingers fringe
the ceiling like oily feathers.
You’re finally going to get what
you want. When the world moves
forward, it will move forward
with you. You’ve made your mark.
Hannah Rodabaugh has an MA from Miami University and an MFA from Naropa University. She is the author of three chapbooks of poetry, including We Don’t Bury Our Dead When Our Dead Are Animals, a collection of ecological elegies. Her writing has appeared in Berkeley Poetry Review, ROAR Magazine, Horse Less Review, K’in Literary Journal, and elsewhere. She has received grants from the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the Alexa Rose Foundation, among others. She has been an Artist-in-Residence for the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. She lives in Boise where she teaches creative writing for The Cabin Idaho.