Equinox Daniel Barnum (bio) these days, I know I am luckyhaving learned to livewithout her early. how she went vanishinginto the mythof childhood: slow, then all-at-once, like snowfall.every memoryis noble failure, somewhere else I’d ratherbe. sometimes, I pretendshe’s waiting up late to catch me sneaking homeyears after curfewto gossip about whatever dude I wantedto get lost in the darkof haunted houses with. hands I didn’t dare holdyet. when I’d grown oldenough to go on makeshift dates, my mom wasn’tdead, just elsewhere,in anotherstate [End Page 356] of decay.I’m singing this songagain, as ifits melodywere the onlything in my range. truth is, it’s what I’ve got:the lot of grief. what I neverlearned to receive graciously, not that I want to beknown as unknowable,but meeting new people not my kind of orphanalways feels like someversion of lol, can’t relate! it must be more complexthan that. and, yes—she wassomewhere near- impossible to find, despite sourcelesswhispers of a reclaimed half-life carved out in some far-off family orchard—a ghostfrom stories she’d told me to illustratethe terms of her estrangement. she was teachingme how to love her later,when all she’d be was gone. a lullaby she used to singme when I was a barelyolder than a baby to scare away men lingering in the shadowson my bedroom walls. wordsfaked from a language [End Page 357] neither one of us understood. the tune’sfaint strains called us both backwherever we had come from and no longer belonged.she sang so low it stayedwith me after I faded into sleep. now wakes my nights; howshe’s left this way to know hervoice for certain. I’m not saying it’s the same thingas her person, butI keep it on in the background under the newconstellation I hear hummingits misfortune to everyone. bright as the fresh cut fleshof apples. I miss her. even the stars,despite great distance from all events, won’t stoptalking about whatever it isthey’re made from. [End Page 358] Daniel Barnum DANIEL BARNUM’s poems and essays appear in or are forthcoming from Washington Square Review, Bat City Review, Muzzle, The Iowa Review, The Offing, and elsewhere. Their debut chapbook, Names for Animals, came out in March 2020 from Seven Kitchens Press. They live outside Washington, DC. Copyright © 2021 Daniel Barnum