(This is a reworked poem from a previous post that I just read for a Creative Writing Student Reading at Le Moyne :)
The doorbell is ringing; it echoes down the hall.
I cling to the corner
Peering, folded legs knotted,
A twisted root in the wood boards.
He carries...A note.
I hold my breath as it rings again.
I see him bend and slide it into a crack under the
screen door
where it sticks.
No emotion; just a twist of his lips.
I was nothing
I was nothing
I am nothing.
My fingers creep over my face, shaking.
An engine revs and gravel crunches,
the dog keeps barking, pitched high and unsure.
My home, is home no longer.
A distaste for the button on the outside of the door,
A hatred for the chimes in the hallway,
I can’t use those steps again.
Because touching them will reconnect us.
The white lined paper crinkles in the wind,
Pinned in the woodwork
Each scribbled line stabs
Pens driven into the tender skin
of my neck
My breast
Pooling heavy ink in my stomach.
I rise, stretch my gnarled limbs,
and take a cinnamon poptart from the box in the
pantry
and absorb the sugar on my tongue.
the wind through the window screens forces scent up
my nostrils
spring
flows through the house. And the acridness of rain.
A droplet hits my forehead as I stand at the screen.
I want the words to smear.
I want them to run through and off the paper,
across the porch and down the stairs.
I want the soil to absorb the thin slice and turn it
into a daffodil.
Whatever is written
I’m sure
Is not more useful than a pretty yellow flower.
Those smears of ink deeply rooted in my garden.
And I will never know.
Piercing daffodils
Tender tulip shoots
Snarling tigerlillies...
embedded with black ink...
Unknown words to feed the blossoms.
