Poetry

Under the oppressive July heat, I carry
my aching body, sweat-coated and glistening, 
up the staircase spiraling and spiraling skyward
until I arrive. Within, a sightless darkness—

The city could be choked with wreckage, 
and still the children would clear
a patch for a football field.

Bi poly pan, is how a friend in Philosophy
described me to me. I relay this as we watch late night
in bed on your laptop. (The host unwinding a joke
about loosening the lid on the stuck-fast jar 
of the spicy pickles of commitment.)

of your face onto the polished 
           floor. It’s been too long since 
                     you stammered in disbelief
                                 at the photograph of a human shadow
                     

Decades ago my dad was a short-order cook.
He says it amounted to
the commotion of one thing burning
just as you’re readying something else.

That’s not your neighbor,
           that’s the disease talking 
                     to her mailbox, pleading

                               for a letter from her dead 
                     husband or distant son

A little death—a sky 
with geese stitched on.
My fears are all explainable— 
it’s cortisol, it’s fate, 
the jerk of mercury, 
the joints’ arthritic 
prescience about rain.

Senior year he made us girls file into the gym for martial arts.

Next year, you may need to protect yourselves, he bellowed.

Picking out a wreath at Clancy’s 
in the brisk elbows of light
I smell mountains you love