PILES
by Julia Falkner
There was something like a clove of garlic
that lay on my wooden table and became parts.
Its skins, in the dozens, became piles.
There were piles that collected around me:
a pile of bottles, of forks with warped tines.
The steel pot filmed over with piles of starch
left by the pile of pasta, its hundred little screws.
It was already evening. The fog had rolled in.
Like all children I slept in a pile on my bed,
where a pile of heat had coalesced.
The yard was piled with trees, and the trees:
bird piles. In the neighbor’s garden raccoons
lounged in long piles, fat from the garbage
which we had piled, carefully, into silver cans.
The sky was coming down very pale and wide
and unframed around all the other piles,
as if trying to tell me: pay attention.
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