Michael Robins
—
Pacific Standard Time
For an audience of threadbare towels, the first cup mimics the next across
the kitchen table. The birdcalls at dawn slip through the ancient windows
& under the door that too often stumbles on its track. Between the crow &
the crawl of the newsfeed, there wobbles an uncanny resemblance. A
crooked mirror in which you brush your teeth & examine the temper of
Wednesday, ghosts of a blue hydrangea near the bottom of the driveway.
Now the stump out there becomes a dog: one spider, then the delusion of
spiders everywhere. Under the increasing light, the growl of a faraway
mower paces the cage of its lawn. Other than thunder—those clouds that
no less brood as the hours double & hurry to their burrows—there’s little
warning of the rain.
The Domestication of Crows
The last of the moon needled beneath a tree & the wires that rarely carry
voices anymore. A chair of books at the window, up under the curtains &
the yard on the other side. Like a housefly. Like an acute trapezoid when,
after drinks, your best friend’s older sister takes your hand under the table.
Out of sight, bodies inching closer in the pool & she guesses the
combination fixed to the day & month of your father’s birth. Years later,
you’re hoping you remembered the stamp, a return address at least & still
the strange man comes at you with his knife. Or that’s another night &, as
though on a flying trapeze, everyone you kissed or ever wanted shows up
& the flowers turn from gorgeous to something else entirely. Like they’re
caught by the wheel of a truck & the crows up there an accident too,
should one believe in accidents.
The House We Called Home
The moth, on her back below the porchlight. The cat toeing the top rail for
centuries & it’s true the crows learn to imitate the other birds. One chair to
another & back, my father’s body won’t come any stronger & there’s room
yet for the alliums lifting tall, the hydrangeas but now they’re purple &
maybe never blue. On an overcast day—this one, the one I know from
childhood & all too well—there flickers every flower nameless to me. Add
to them the branch of apples too small to eat & how we walked uphill,
both ways, except there was no hill, nothing but the great disassembly into
words. This head gone heavy between your hands & even death forgets to
switch off the light, to say goodbye.
Michael Robins is the author of five collections of poetry, including People You May Know (2020) and The Bright Invisible (2022), both from Saturnalia Books. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Bennington Review, The Best American Poetry, Court Green, and Mississippi Review. He lives in the Portage Park neighborhood of Chicago. More at ifyoulivedhere
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