Proxy
by Steven Pfau
That August, in your absence, I reclaimed my attic roost. But by day, your shaving mirror mocked my boyishness, the bathtub had no intention of filling itself, and the piano shrank from my touch. So I crossed the road, waded through the wild carrot to the riverbank, and lay on the lichen-spotted dock. The neighbors passed on skiffs and called your name. No, I answered, straining to raise my offkey voice over the cicadas, his nephew. I began to see my body drift in and out of context. Shards of someone’s blue china, maybe yours, kept washing ashore.
This poem first appeared in Issue 26 of Blue Earth Review.