Record of Deaths: Diamond Forde or Written Apology to Me in a Parallel Universe
“Let’s start the story backwards—” –Doechii
Like anyone with an imagination, I grieve
the infinite me, a multiverse
of self thrust through space dust,
& I’ve survived
one drowning—lifted from the deep
by strange hands, sopping
air into my water-wrung lungs
while a different Diamond
in a different time
kept sinking—
I am sorry
that I have lived
through three car wrecks, two surgeries, & my own hand
capped on an oversized bottle of pain
meds which means, I owe
another apology. To you, as in the other me,
forced to feed each pip down your longing.
I was too glad to tuck each sun like a clementine in my pocket.
& I still don’t know what it means to leave
a legacy of sputum,
or to nestle each night
in a catacomb, & lo!
on our multiverse sisters
who surely guarded Mama as she cried
in her closet, cornered by a cemetery of shoes—let Mercy
be a GOD who listens:
let me die
the way Grandma died: stroked out, stoked
on eucharistic commitments to
me— no, you— a fantasy far
& hip-deep in daffodils, sunlight dribbling
down our chin:
the survivor
left to pry these dream songs
from the honeysuckle sky—
promise you’ll hold me
like a long, needful breath
then turn me loose.
Copyright © 2025 by Diamond Forde. Published by permission of the poet.