Of the Irresolubleness of Diamonds
Copyright © 2017 by Monica Ferrell. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 2, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2017 by Monica Ferrell. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 2, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
I walk the world with a locked box
Lodged in my chest. Doctor, it hurts
But not as much as it should. In Bucha,
On the roadway of the Street of Apples
A woman lay four weeks straight
Unburied even by snow. They saw her red
The evening I left, I went for a wash
In the neighborhood hammam. Lifted my dress.
Entered the water, which moved in rings
From me as though from a stranger, took a stick
To strip a layer of my old back.
In my bag lay a box of Turkish Delight
Meant for my parents, a book of notes, a passport
This massive apartment: a whole room left
Empty to air, where we used to sleep.
So many steps on the waxed wood, like off turns
On the dial of a lock whose combination one’s lost—
All decaying about me like empire,
The moldings moldering while I sit frozen
As a swan on the surface of a lake changing to ice.