Poetry, Toni della Fata

Baby, are you a believer?

I don’t believe in God anymore.

But I believe in foxes, standing on the hood of my neighbour’s 2024 Toyota, 

in blood moons in the dead heat of summer,

in gravestones with handwritten notes taped to the marble, spelled incorrectly in a foreign language,

in crumpled birthday cards and sun-stained photos in a shoebox underneath my mattress. 

“Ci vediamo,” see you soon, I remember telling myself, 

at the foot of your bed, 

the mausoleum,

the pier,

at an apartment in Montreal’s east-end.

I believe in the text messages you sent me, 

in the accidental photo you took of yourself in the hospital, 

they sit undeleted, like cremated ashes on my phone.

“Don’t remember me like this,” you said in broken English, because you wanted me to understand,

I promised that I wouldn’t but of course that was a lie. 

I believe in the clock reaching half past noon, one April afternoon, sitting in my high-school’s music room, dread creeping like a morning glory up my throat.

I believe in early spring sadness, budding with the daffodils in the ditch off the cemetery’s main road.

I believe we’ll always be tethered together, your electric pulse in mine,

Though I spent years fighting it, 

I close my eyes,

Watch our images,

 blur,

overlap,

collapse.

Maybe if I can’t believe in God, I can at least believe in You.