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On a Street That Should Be Named Loss
Melanie Perish

He called and we walked

stopped in front of a brick house on Ralston.
I think his lover used to live there
down the street from St. Mary’s ER.

He asked if I remembered last month
when we were in Vermont,

but we were never in Vermont.
Nerves on Defcon 1 because
he was off his meds and on
mushrooms or Humboldt County
red hair sinsemilla.

In Vermont, he said, we tapped
maple trees, drilled a trunk hole,
pushed the spile in, heard sap run.
We were magic, he said. The trees
were mystics, in English and French.

I’m afraid they’ll tap
my brain again, he said.

I won’t let them, I said, and neither
will your brother. Let’s stop there.

I left him at his brother’s house.
I left him in better care than mine.
I kissed his check before I left.

His pain was wiser
than my kiss.

—
Melanie Perish’s work has appeared in Sequestrum, Third Street Review, Sinister Wisdom, Calyx, and other publications. Nevada Humanities featured her poems on the websites Heart to Heart and Nevadan to Nevadan. Passions & Gratitudes (Black Rock Press, 2011) and The Fishing Poems (chapbook, Meridian Press, 2017) are recent collections. Foreign Voices, Native Tongues (Single Wing Press, 2021) is her newest book.

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