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HILLARY KOBERNICK
IN THE END
In the end,
Deann died
and eventually
Facebook
suspended her
profile
and we all
crossed the
stage and
some of us
even got
real jobs.
We all
lived through
24 and
there it was,
movement
and weak links
and the
recurring
May 21sts
piling on top
of each other
until it was
just another
day on which
good things
happened,
too, until
one day
driving 196
in Northern
Michigan
you can’t
remember
if this is
the highway
or is it in
Minnesota.
In the end,
we all just
kept going
onward
living,
and tried
not to
notice how
each year
she got
a little
small
er.
IN THE END
In the end
Deann died
but before that
we laughed a lot, sometimes
about Minnesota but mostly
about Indiana. We got drunk
and sang hymns on rooftops
and spoke in foreign languages,
in all things knowing. Or, better,
not knowing but asking
very good questions.
We learned to say “um”
authoritatively, we deferred
only to books (and the coffee
shop’s early close),
we made Much Ado about
Nothing, we kissed (and kept
pocketbooks, yes, we kept
pocketbooks then, of who
and reasons we did not regret it)
and often, we were happy.
We traveled to foreign countries
and were unimpressed with dengue fever.
We wowed our professors
and our parents and our teeth
were very white. We were brilliant,
then, that year before
Deann died and that
was the end.
POSTCARDS FROM SOVIET RUSSIA
all memory is attention. we can’t recall
what we never noticed. when i say i don’t
remember the sex i mean i know it, i know
it was, i just didn’t notice it over the rest
of the facts: him not noticing my underwear,
a postcard from Soviet Russia taped on his wall,
the boiling petulant feeling of too many French Fries.
not that i remember exactly those things
but in all likelihood that’s what it was.
i’ve slept with so many men who have
postcards from Soviet Russia.
Hillary Kobernick writes poems for both performance and page. She has competed at the National Poetry Slam six times, representing Atlanta and Chicago. She holds a master’s of divinity and pastors outside of Chicago. Her poems have been featured on Button Poetry’s YouTube Channel and are published in DecomP, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, and The Christian Century, among others.