“Built for Letting Go” by Marissa Glover

Built for Letting Go

Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact;
but maybe everything that dies
someday comes back.
— Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City”

The only flat tire I’ve ever had
I got driving through the parking lot
at Jimmy’s Roller Rink — I ran over
a curb looking for your car to see
if you were there, without me,
on a Friday night full of couples’
skates. After Springsteen sang
his angsty ballad, no doubt you
put your left leg in, you put your
left leg out, as the girls in spandex
shook it all about.

The tire wasn’t the only thing
to go flat that year. You broke up
with me with a phone call
on Christmas Eve, a call
I had to take in the living room
because that’s how land lines
worked. The phone and I, nailed
to the wall — unmovable,
my parents’ party guests swirling
around me, a tempest whirling
inside.

If I could find a magic DeLorean
with a flux capacitor and tires
that rotate horizontally for upward
thrust, yes, I’d visit the past — but
only to travel with today’s strong
arms, built for letting go. And if
everything that dies someday
does come back, I pray nothing
I’ve buried returns just as it was.
There’s not enough ground to dig
every grave twice.

MarissA GLOVER

Marissa Glover teaches and writes in Florida, where she is co-editor of Orange Blossom Review and a senior editor at The Lascaux Review. Marissa’s work appears in Rust + Moth, SWWIM Every Day, Okay Donkey, and Whale Road Review, among other journals. Her full-length poetry collection, LET GO OF THE HANDS YOU HOLD, is forthcoming from Mercer University Press in April 2021. Follow Marissa on Twitter @_MarissaGlover_ .

Headshot: Benjamin Watters; photo editing by Stephanie Reed Photography

Photo Credit: Staff