beth gylys / poem

Breakup in Search of Amnesia

I fall asleep after a coffee—

like opposite day—

like him in a wool coat

getting married in summer.

(We were so lovely then,

our smiles made from something

broken, and no chairs on which to sit.)

If bombs dropped 

in Kabul, we didn’t know it.

We drank gin. We drank wine.

Our plates fork-scraped,

our shining faces overworked.

Like opposite day, 

I stand and speak

in front of a class 

as if I know something. 

They hold phones and notebooks

as glass windows shatter

in my chest.  

I should be hidden

under a desk, I should be

digging up bones

piecing them together

to unmake the puzzle.

Minutes later, a dove

ignites. Minutes later,

another mother stops

breathing. I might as well

go under: if I stare at the ceiling 

until my eyes burn with whiteness,

I cannot unlook

all this world.

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Beth Gylys is a distinguished professor of creative writing who has published five books of poetry (most recently the co-written The Conversation Turns to Wide-Mouth Jars) and three chapbooks. An additional chapbook is forthcoming in 2026 with Harbor Editions. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the James Dickey Review, Nelle, and SWWIMM.