Skip to content

Log Out

×

Poetry

Bathrooms are the best locale.
All that waste and water and getting clean.

Or trains. The nearly equal passengers.
A phone rings in the kitchen but no one picks it up.

Milk goes bad at room temp. You don’t check your email anymore.
Could only scrawl a message: “I____you

with all my harm.” Each day stacked in the closet. Folded, white—

Why can’t I snap the wishbone, learn to tolerate the chilly floors?

If breath by breath I reckon, if I am to approximate myself—

                               (This, then that, then this again.
                                       Stutter, step, a step.)

Like that woman in the corner seat. I can’t tell if she’s sleeping
or in pain.

If you won’t, then count my leavings.

Bright amnesiac instance,
little red thread on my jeans.

Image depends on its subscribers and supporters. Join the conversation and make a contribution today.

+ Click here to make a donation.

+ Click here to subscribe to Image.


The Image archive is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Related Poetry

Men’s Shop

By

Dwaine Rieves

Yanjing Beer

By

Stephen Haven

Still Life with Lily

By

Judith Harris

Lazarus

By

Ricardo Pau-Llosa

Receive ImageUpdate, our free weekly newsletter featuring the best from Image and the world of arts & faith

* indicates required