Anniversary

By Hanna Webster

—on our seventh anniversary, i believe that you love me. we are twirling
in the rocks on a frigid beach somewhere in Washington & our feet get slit
from the shells & you lick
them and laugh—

fingers interlocked i laid
on your thighs you played me
a song you wrote
you are a part of it you are a part of it you are
a part of it a part of your life. no evidence
besides this i want to take back

when you made me
spill over onto you staining
that porch couch at four am

i want to transform
into an unfeeling creature
take my confessions; haul them
out to the sacrificial fire, looming

i want not for you
to sense your own absence inside me
like a phantom limb.

one day—after
I saw through the bone—I’ll forget
your voice, singing.