Spell to Drown the Ghost of a Younger Self

JENNY BOYCHUK

You once saw a girl baptized

this way: a whole congregation waist-deep. Minnows flinched

and begged. Water spilled

from a pitcher of cupped palm

and glassed her forehead. Unbutton

the memory of your uncle wading into a lake with you in his arms.

He only meant to teach you

to swim. Because both memory and the dead

glide backwards, you must forget

to hold your breath. Refuse nothing. You are always a child

who strives to avoid grief

entirely, who wishes she were born

with wings that could slice away

the sky—a life without mirrors— knowing well that even birds

hold funerals in the tall grass.

Now, she sits next to you on the edge

of the bathtub. You’ve missed her

—but not like this. Hold a cloth

under a stream of warm water and tell her you hate her

for leaving. For coming back.

This is the only way to keep her close.

Wash the dust from her face and brush the webs from her hair. Egg nests

come undone in the little trap

of your fingers. Open your palm

and say, This is what you get for sleeping

in the walls. Set the nests on the sill in case the spiders might still hatch.

Like pussy willows, even dead,

her softness astonishes you.

Wash her face until she cries

a witchgrass silence, and remember that you are and have always been

this child allowed to slip

out the back door, into the hem

of night. Cover her nose and mouth

with the cloth. Close your eyes. Let the lake seep in. Rinse her

until she is unimaginable.