Sarah Dickenson Snyder
A VANISHING
I can’t remember when exactly
I stopped believing I had
magical powers, my spells
soundless as they moved
through another dimension
touching a world on the edge
of this world, bending the rules
and prayers drilled into me,
but maybe
it was that day walking home alone
from school and two boys
leaped from the woods,
pinned me down in the dirt
and leaves and pine needles—
it must have been fall.
Their mouths taking
all of the oxygen,
their laughter and running
away, my re-entry shadowed
with a sky inscribed by branches,
sitting up and brushing off,
my mouth still feeling
like something was there.
I remember the seconds
of not-breathing, those seconds
falling inside me like a rock in a pond,
settled in the muck but still there
to see whenever the water clears.
And never telling anyone.
Making it just a kiss
as if a kiss would feel like that.