TWENTY YEARS LATER

I hope I forget you in the peaceful way,
no longer remembering the habits of yours
that bubble up in you-like situations,
that I forget the way you sounded 
before you started talking like this, 
and I hope you know that visceral 
feeling of smelling a passing smell 
has faded into a photograph of a memory, 
almost all the venom gone. 

By Heidi Turner