I Am in a Room Alone

with the only music of the morning traffic, those who must rise to drive to labor, and a window often curtained and closed, and in winter, the radiator hissing, the kind from another century, the kind you must be careful or it will burn you. And there is a bed in the corner, and a small kitchen with a pot of coffee, and the murmurous speech of neighbors waking, for they too must return to the world where we are owned by others, who take the hours of our lives in return for wage. I would bet no one in this building could tell you my name or that there is a man who lives here all alone, long after the ones he loved, if ever, have left him, in this room. But then what are the names of the Chechen family who lives upstairs, who speak their difficult tongues, and the daughter who is late for the school bus every morning and runs calling after it in sounds of words I cannot translate as I pray she doesn’t fall? For who would lift her and bandage her knees? I peek out from behind the curtain, but the bus has stopped, and there is her mother on the porch yelling at her, smiling though. And then she pauses to look at the sky, the sky I have not looked at in days. There is absence and wholeness here, departure and what remains. The mother, now, is upstairs getting ready for work. The father and mother walk out in blue uniforms to work on a factory line. I once read the name of the pie factory on their clothes. To spend all day in the smell of sugar and sweetness must be a form of hell. I would learn to hate what I once loved to eat. There is something too often beautiful and terrible at the same time in this world. And then, the quiet of absence returns and fools me into clarity. And then, I look up to see starlings flying over the tenement roofs. I see the pale daylight moon staring down over the boat works and the refinery. Dear Lord, if now is the moment for a full confession, then now is when I will offer it if only you will lesson me on what I have left to learn.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Number 3. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

She Replants

The family tree is gnarled and warped. Witch’s bony
knuckles and fingers sprouting from a dark corner of the earth.
It hangs like a curse and blights the lonely apple that grows,
hiding. A thin branch reluctantly bows to its weight.

The disgruntled farmer marches toward, callused fingers
gripping an axe. A ruling by nature’s court would have
taken longer. As the bit kisses wood, neighboring foliage pockets
stray echoes—as if the tree never stood. For a moment,
even nature forgets its impartiality, wishing it good riddance.

Striking ground, leaves quake and abandon loyal dew drops,
while the tart apple tumbles away unceremoniously, catching bruises.
The apple finds final refuge not too far from the felled tree:
chopped wood hauled away after an inconclusive autopsy—
why that tree grew diseased and wicked, neither the apple nor the farmer
knows. Perhaps it was simply impartiality. The apple finally begins to rest
and somehow, it does not rot until the very end. Its secret is peace.
Though nature would never acknowledge it.

With graceful decay, the elements accept the sunken
apple’s sacrifice as offering. The cost to plant roots paid in full,
its seeds are blessed. They lay dormant, mourning.
At the turn of the season, they shed their coats of hesitation
and begin ascent. In old age, the deer, hawks, and ravens
finally bear witness to an anchored palace ornamented
in abundance with sweet rubies basking in the sunlight.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.