Meghan Miraglia
—
California
Palo Alto & I were learning
how to be gentle with each other.
Mostly, it was easy. I photographed
palm trees, fumbled in & out of sleep,
ate salads & listened to children
talk to themselves. The second week, I woke
with a bruise that spanned the length of
my fore-arm. It turned green, then brown, like
two softened apples left uneaten.
I had also managed to slice my
leg open in the shower, which meant
I had to scrub tile with the one white
cloth I had been given. I changed the
bandage to keep from sticking to the
sheets. When locals asked me what I thought
of California, I said, It’s nice,
but I think I’m ready to go home.
The buildings - tan, stucco, unfinished –
had lost their charm. The bikes, without their
wheels & rusted frames: racehorses shot
on the track. I bled, added pressure,
counted the days in their calendar
boxes. I didn’t get paid enough,
was denied overtime. Money, hair,
my glasses, my even tan-line, lost.
The children laughed in the heat, red as death
Nausea
A glance: the moment
expands. I am both
alone & a stranger. You
watch me touch the spines,
wait for them to give
way.
How do we return,
slowly, to the way
we were, before we’d
seen the other? Earlier,
in a state far from this one,
a father bought
his son a rifle. You might
think it too soon
for me to commit this
to paper. You might still
think it too soon for
death, or for writing
about death. The air
between us rinsed,
wrung by noiseless
machines. I carry a book
about sex and art.
It is heavy. So much
said. Most of it
forgotten.
Meghan Miraglia is a poet, educator, and an MFA student at Boston University. Her work appears/is forthcoming in the Southern Florida Poetry Journal, Arkana, Up the Staircase Quarterly, the South Carolina Review, and others. You can find her on Instagram @meghan.gets.lit, or on her blog meghanthepoet
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