A Still Life by Georgina Terry

OLD wallpaper / Run my hands along it, / Lime green, bumpy / / I open the front door and then close it again / Loudly, performatively / Shutting out the outside world / There is more of that to be found insides / I laugh, / The breath escapes me / But the sound withers within. / / Noiselessly, I return up the stairs. / Taking my place as an intruder / That vilified fate of expired visitors / / I walk into a room / The safety of a cupboard

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ALBANIAN SONGS ARE CARRYING IN ATHENS
male choruses a cappella.
It is Sunday, I am in my heart.

I never see those girls, sitting
on their porch from
my balcony —

the sights that be, seeing
helis along big buildings
those clouds —

a blanket this space, covering
myself in a layered
look. Jackets

and jazz, serenading the neighbs.

“All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses” —Walt Whitman

city of
           heat waves and dust particles
    light
distilled into so many colors—
           gold / gold / gold / gold
           stanced in a way to stay put / quivering

      Another year passes as you are still, in your absence.

My grief is the same shape, a blue bottle.
Though, it’s begun to coddle rust, the incense / burns. I want to say 
the world is different, as it must be, as I sense you
would have liked it to be, though nothing
changes: it’s the same horror each day. 
No good King abjures dominion for truth, for virtue.
That’s a philosopher’s mistake.

The first time I stepped onto the soft, thick layer of pine needles, I didn’t know what I'd find. The few bottles and cans I saw when driving by were easy to pick up, but hidden in the underbrush were more I hadn’t seen. I have arthritis in my hips which made careful and slow as I moved through the high grass and weeds lest I step in a hole or trip over a root. The pangs from bending over added a bitter note to each piece of refuse I collected.

The bathroom, seamed, stretched out.
And, all respect to the denouement,
Dick, once more unlimited in his powers
with little stepping stones, was only in
the bedroom with Shakespeare's backs.

The horrible kiss, long and unfunny,
and on the other hand love: the face,
comically shadowed, contracted.