What the Neighbors Saw
by Kelly Grace Thomas
after Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Another dying doe: no
A fist: sometimes
Every tooth in the china cabinet: yes
Open on a kitchen like handcuffs: yes
Fridge full of food: yes All you hear
is knives
True.
Avocado: no A stick of softened butter: yes
The mother: maybe
The instinct: never
The crime scene: every time
Thumb pressed to butter: yes
Like flowers dying: no
Like the drains and the diapers: no
This is how we fingerprint.
The infant’s sock. Pause. Blood, unwashed. Pause.
Keep the bedroom door closed: yes. But, no.
But have to: yes.
Don’t think of blue daisies: no
I don’t.
The closed bedroom door: okay.
The therapist, Do you blame yourself? Sometimes: yes.
I can’t drive tonight.
Do not say: headlights
Never ask: deer.
And please god: don’t talk about her age
A lonely dinner table: no
The only thing
to eat: yes
The how was your day: sometimes.
The steering wheel breakdowns: often
Breakdown and break in: just stage directions: yes.
And we can talk about tiny coffins: don’t
We can talk of eulogies
The outloud of: this
No. Not yet, maybe.
I should. No.
The fork scraping
on china
is not teeth
or rose
But the sound we make
To try to keep from
the words circling
The room: yes
The ocean of open doors: yes
I am a swallow: yes
Please keep it shut: yes
Keep it
quiet : please
You think you know about this: no.
September, a little death: yes
Every year: yes.
On the kitchen wall
the measured marks: yes stopped
at 3 feet 5 inches
like a frozen pond: yes
Me: thin ice: yes
You think we should try again? : no
And never.
And I hate this conversation: yes
Let quiet keep its rest: please
A dying anything has too much hands: yes
I have cut off each finger:
yes
I have burned down the house
The door is still closed: yes.
I’m only a storm pipe
in someone else’s
neighborhood: yes
My smile a kicked in flowerpot: yes
My mouth, this ugly shovel: yes
I can never dig out: no.
And the whispers circulate: shh.
And the bus stop moves.
Street corner eyes: make
The front lawn of ghost
story.
The smallest thing missing: a tooth, a tombstone, a section of fence.
Another dying doe: no
A fist: sometimes
Every tooth in the china cabinet: yes
Open on a kitchen like handcuffs: yes
Fridge full of food: yes All you hear
is knives
True.
Avocado: no A stick of softened butter: yes
The mother: maybe
The instinct: never
The crime scene: every time
Thumb pressed to butter: yes
Like flowers dying: no
Like the drains and the diapers: no
This is how we fingerprint.
The infant’s sock. Pause. Blood, unwashed. Pause.
Keep the bedroom door closed: yes. But, no.
But have to: yes.
Don’t think of blue daisies: no
I don’t.
The closed bedroom door: okay.
The therapist, Do you blame yourself? Sometimes: yes.
I can’t drive tonight.
Do not say: headlights
Never ask: deer.
And please god: don’t talk about her age
A lonely dinner table: no
The only thing
to eat: yes
The how was your day: sometimes.
The steering wheel breakdowns: often
Breakdown and break in: just stage directions: yes.
And we can talk about tiny coffins: don’t
We can talk of eulogies
The outloud of: this
No. Not yet, maybe.
I should. No.
The fork scraping
on china
is not teeth
or rose
But the sound we make
To try to keep from
the words circling
The room: yes
The ocean of open doors: yes
I am a swallow: yes
Please keep it shut: yes
Keep it
quiet : please
You think you know about this: no.
September, a little death: yes
Every year: yes.
On the kitchen wall
the measured marks: yes stopped
at 3 feet 5 inches
like a frozen pond: yes
Me: thin ice: yes
You think we should try again? : no
And never.
And I hate this conversation: yes
Let quiet keep its rest: please
A dying anything has too much hands: yes
I have cut off each finger:
yes
I have burned down the house
The door is still closed: yes.
I’m only a storm pipe
in someone else’s
neighborhood: yes
My smile a kicked in flowerpot: yes
My mouth, this ugly shovel: yes
I can never dig out: no.
And the whispers circulate: shh.
And the bus stop moves.
Street corner eyes: make
The front lawn of ghost
story.
The smallest thing missing: a tooth, a tombstone, a section of fence.
Kelly Grace Thomas is a Pushcart Prize nominee and 2016 Fellow for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the following journals: Muzzle, Rattle, PANK, decomP, Rust + Moth, Crab Creek Review, and more. Her poem the "The Politics of Scent" was a named a semifinalist for the Crab Creek Review Poetry Contest. Kelly also works to bring poetry to under-served youth as the Manager of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She lives in Los Angeles and is working her debut novel Only 10,001. For more of her work, visit www.kellygracethomas.com.