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Drought

by Frances-Marie Coke

All year the drought: the caked soil cracked

like brittle bones unearthed by starving dogs.

And on the screen sits this Nothingness

That’s lived between my ribs too long,

for no words have been made to speak the things

that haunt me on the edges of the night.

 

Across the room, you fade into that haze

that settled on the window pane one day,

Long after rose-pink chiffon curtains faded

and the melodies we played for one another

spun unnoticed to their end, the blunt needle

groaning on the record no one rose to change.

 

I wonder who you are: your face a shadow

of the face I loved so long ago,  

when roses lasted longer than a day,

and rivers flowed where now the city garbage

clogs our way; when children’s laughter

rang across the pages we were sketching

of tomorrow; when church bells pealed

to celebrate the living, not the dead.

 

I watch you move your stranger’s feet

across a carpet worn with other journeys

to this place of broken figurines and candlesticks—

their leafy patterns buried in the dust.

I watch you close the door, a metal bar

across its face to keep out murky night

where shadows haunt a crumbling wall,

its patterns in a heap of restless pebbles

skidding round the path.

And outside, the city settles for a time, before the sirens blast.

And in this silent place of fading light,

we stare into our empty coffee mugs—and wait.

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