Robin Arble | Two poems
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Last night, I opened every closet in western Massachusetts to prove I wasn’t there. I woke up, looked in the mirror & there I wasn’t: tiny tits on a too-huge ribcage. I searched for my younger self in every closet in western Massachusetts & found him crouching under his mother’s dresses every time. All day I left him there. I couldn't sleep. I laid my pillows on my windowsill & hung half my head outside my window. I smoked a joint in bed & counted stars as my brain blossomed. I looked at the crescent moon until I looked through it. I could feel the earth spinning six miles between heartbeats. I sat up. I looked at my softening cheeks & hard stubble. I looked at my black bangs framing my face. I looked into the double eclipse of my pupils. My breath fogged on the glass as my eyes started to close. My lips were so cold, I flinched. |
My mother’s room was blue.
Her TV was always on.
One night, her crime show
penetrated my sleep—
I was born here, I lived here,
& at 14, I died here.
Somewhere between
a commercial & a dream:
a small town, half
abandoned by itself—
brown barns, picked fields,
torn screen windows.
Her room was blue.
Her TV was on.
As that voice spoke, a flock
of black birds scattered
from a bare tree. Some nights
I still wake up to her.
Still 14. Still next to me.
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