Bethany Schultz Hurst

Velveteen

so you are real now whatever

happened to your other body
the plush one that love ruined
all the other toys are being

pitched into the fire built

on the bracken’s edge
the silent house is empty of
its people is being scrubbed

of its old fevers and you never

made it to the seaside the boy
is gone now to the seaside
your replacement in his arms

your better version with glassy eyes

that can resist the water that can
resist the surf which erases us
before relenting and then erases

us all over again the unimaginable

sea the unspeakable sea larger
than any dumb thing the boy
could hold in the nursery and

you can’t blame him

with your sewn mouth
your silence was a primer
in all the other silences that wait

to breathe on him wait to breathe

on us at least there was an hour
where he loved you still
you never made it to the shore

you felt was promised when he was

both aflame and soaking with
sickness into your worn fur
and now the skin horse reduced

to ashes cannot convince us

that being set loose into
the bracken with all our wild
orphaned brothers is really

love’s better ending