In the kitchen:
corn beside chronology,
peas queued next to permanence.
Even the peaches know
how to wait.
Shelf life: three years.
Half-life: unknown.
What remains
after the jar is sealed,
but before the silence speaks?
Preservation requires
a kind of violence—
heat, pressure,
the removal of air.
You left a message:
I’m not here right now—
which was true,
and not.
Outside, the pines
rise in rows
of measured grief.
Six feet apart.
Six feet below.
Memory decays by degrees:
the unsaid thickens
in corners,
a fog that once had a name.
At the museum:
the last passenger pigeon,
suspended in glycerin,
its eye still searching the glass
for a sky it remembers.
At home:
your hairbrush.
The smell of your skin
lingering on its teeth,
as if still deciding
to stay.
What cannot be preserved:
the warmth held in your laugh,
the chill
before the door closed.
On the counter:
twenty-seven Mason jars.
On the bed:
sheets folded
like the wings of something
that once knew how to land.
They say wolves now navigate cities—
Canis lupus with subway maps
etched in instinct.
Still, I listen
for wildness
in the hum of the fridge,
your voice
reverberating in the ductwork.
In the museum of failed containment:
every jar cracked,
every silence swallowed,
every touch
we meant to remember.
The lights go out.
Not even the glass shines.
JL Chen is a poet and writer whose work appears in Grain, Canadian Literature, Mantis (Stanford), PRISM International, Queen’s Quarterly, West Trade Review, and elsewhere. Shortlisted for the 2024 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, Chen holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of King’s College and is at work on her debut collection.