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Your black coat is a door
in the storm. The snow
we don’t mention
clings to your boots & powders
& puffs. & poof. Goes.
Dust of the fallen. Right here
at home. The ache
of someone gone-missing. Walk it off
like a misspoken word.
Mound of snow. Closed door.
I could open it.
Or maybe just, you know—
brush it off.
Then what? The snow
on the other side. The sound
of what I know & your, no, inside it.
Copyright © 2015 by Yona Harvey. Used with permission of the author.
Four tickets left, I let her go—
Firstborn into a hurricane.
I thought she escaped
The floodwaters. No—but her
Head is empty of the drowned
For now—though she took
Ezzard Charles Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio, circa 1980
Snuffed out candlewick shadow
disappears in the shimmer
of her snuff cans. The silver
cylinders cradle the powder
she’s prone to pucker, her lower lip
smooth with the stuff. She takes
her time. This is her time. Her mind
Like, the last thing I said to you was let’s buy a duplex,
like, you live on your side & I’ll live on my side &
you’ll rise when you rise & I’ll rise when I rise &
I said something like, let’s divide these hurts & regrets
& you get a stack & I get a stack & you walk a block
& I walk a block & you get a poodle & I get a pug