“Here Are The Ones That Went”
by Sonya Vatomsky
When one of your favorite humans is also one of your favorite writers (not to mention favorite poets) and they publish a new short story, it’s cause for celebration no matter what the state of the world or the state of myself.
I’ll never forget the first time I read one of Sonya’s poems, from Salt is for Curing, long before that magical little volume had a list of print editions accumulating behind it. My breath caught in my throat as the raw resonance of their words drew me in while everything went still and quiet around me.
We hadn’t met each other yet – I had no idea that we one day would – but I felt like they were speaking to intensely personal aspects of myself, as though they knew me through and through. Years, adventures, and many miles later, they do know me far, far better than most.
And each time Sonya publishes something new, I relish the awareness that the engrossing scenes they set, the palpable incantations they weave, the emotions they so vividly and potently conjure, will find and speak to the innermost parts of others too.
So here we are, and “Here are the Ones That Went” is an achingly mournful marvel:
It’s Sunday and we are standing, as we do every Sunday, in the small kitchen of your apartment. There are the white-and-blue cups we gulp tea (and sometimes wine) out of. There is the Soviet kitsch rug, slightly off-centre, nailed to the wall behind the couch. An electric kettle hisses assertively on the Formica counter as an easy silence unspools in the soft space between us. Yet I have no idea where any of these things came from. You didn’t own them when you were alive.
Today marks three months—thirteen Sundays—since I received the brochure outlining my new government benefit: how many Visits are covered, what to expect, what I should do to promote ‘accelerated healing’. In the centre of the tri-fold is a stock photo of two women laughing. I return to it again and again, searching for a sign that one of the women is less real than the other. That one of the smiles doesn’t quite reach the eyes. I want to know which one represents me and which one represents you and I want to know about laughing—alone, together, or at all.
The first time I saw you after your death was also a Sunday, warmer than this one, slashes of blue in an overcast sky. I was feeling nostalgic in a way that was probably clinical, drifting numbly past flowers and baked goods at the co-op down the street. The situation called for ice cream, I thought. But what do you like? I couldn’t remember for the life of me. For the life of me, I whispered to myself. Ha-ha. At the self-checkout I scanned a carton of Neapolitan, literally nobody’s favourite. Outside the air was thick with possibility, like something you could climb. A trio of street performers gyrated to a hideous tune.
