A Tribute to Angela Set to Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits

by

Heather Momyer

“Rhiannon” : There is dark and it is quiet. There is dark and it curls in my lap. In dark, I hold still and hope the cat purrs for a quick moment before jumping off. She is elsewhere—perhaps in another room. She is elsewhere—perhaps with a lover. I fumble through dark and the cat’s rough tongue is in my mouth. Angela, I would have loved to love you.

“Don’t Stop” : Too many yesterdays add up to years and years, and those summer mountain days before we turned 20 fly out like light moving through time. My eyes open wider and I tell my pupils they can’t close up—no matter how uncomfortable.

“Go Your Own Way” : Of course, I wanted to go my own way.

“Hold Me” : At 19, there is time and time, but now, fifteen years later, I remember your name and the feel of your hair, four fingers long.

“Everywhere” : There is a memory and it lies everywhere. It feels everywhere, with feelers feeling out into space, it touches but cannot see. I can shout but there are few words to get out. There is little I remember about that summer. I wish I could remember words, but what I remember is how cold my hands were in those May rains, and I wish I knew for sure if we huddled under the same roof. Surely we did on many occasions.

“Gypsy” : There was dirt, frogs in the water, black snakes in the grass along the gravel pathways. Your brother drew my picture in charcoal. What were the odds of being struck by lightning in that forest? We climbed ropes but were never taller than the trees.

“You Make Loving Fun” : Two girls browned from the sun running naked in the woods—this was the witch’s spell. The truth was flirtatious innuendo. I wanted to stand next to you.

“As Long As You Follow” : I was shy. And now, and now. There are days that are lost, and the roads are haunted when the sun goes down. I am going to those hills in a few weeks though the car will likely get stuck in the snow, just like last time—but maybe not. Tomorrow follows today.

“Dreams” : Because then there were the boys and there was no time for you and me. There were too many big hands that would slap our legs and feel the napes of our necks, and Angela, I heard you moan from the rocks over my head.

“Say You Love Me” : But memory is a tricky thing. And maybe you weren’t on the rocks, and then again, maybe I didn’t notice because I was having sex behind the waterfall with the high-school senior who said he loved fucking me.

“Tusk” : Years later, I danced to drums in a circle of women somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana. There are pagans near still waters. I bit my lip and tasted blood. I tasted blood and moved in the circle. I moved in the circle and the woman slapped her drum.

“Little Lies” : I’d run back to you in a heartbeat, Angela, in a heartbeat.

“Sara” : Because that would be the romantic thing to do, and maybe we could talk of poems and of music, and I could say something about Dire Straits and “Lady Writer” and intertextuality and the way symbols speak to each other, because at heart, there is nothing below the surface anymore. Our emptiness is intellectualized, and I wonder if you ever even finished college.

“Big Love” : There is no one to love in this house—only the whiskers of something felt stretching out, a cat in the hallway—a cat and she is black and stretching out.

“Over My Head” : I’ll pretend that you are up to your witchery and the cat still has my tongue.

“No Questions Asked” : And from this time alone, I’m casting a spell in return, creating a beast too quiet to have ever been born.

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Heather Momyer acts as the Nonfiction Editor of Requited, reads fiction for Hotel Amerika, and is a new editor for Slash Pine Press. Her work appears in journals such as H_NGM_N, Moria, jmww, Keepgoing, and Exquisite Corpse. New work is forthcoming in Ekleksographia and trnsfr.