Michelle Nye

Corner Chair (Waiting)

Stiff fabrics, restless walls
my great grand mother’s way
of over saturated silence
hands over knees
breath held in place

For if you were to come
enchanted by this corner
I’d have you
lulled and disarmed
by a chorus of voices
generations of fancy
weaving reasons for you
to stay put by my side

These hopeful methods
once sticky with expectation
now dusted thick with restraint
and darkened with worry
finally only to be
a blindly held persuasion
exposed in this emerging light

Stairs (Held)

In these rooms I looked for you
calling your name, hunting you down
when darkness filled the corners
I took it as truth
and turned my back on you

All these years you were here
your footsteps beneath my feet
worn wood railings
sliding under your palms
as I crept up these stairs
searching for you

In this house I called you separate
an other to resist, to forget
your crumbling walls
with exposed inclinations
and inappropriate leanings
all my reasons to long for you

All this time I passed you by
certain in security
boarding up missed chances
and dust choked failures
where I assumed you oughtn’t be.

All at once, turning and stopping
there is a momentary truce
when your beams of midday light
sit on these steps
held in place by my dark edges
finally I see then
there is no you, just we

Corner Heater (Distance)

I’ve found a way
to sit beside you
which doesn’t make me shake
with the cold
of the space between us

Once we shared this place
and it filled with warmth
your late afternoon rays
melting my rigid ideas
of how things should be

Sparing no expense
I kept that as truth
and forced it on this room
fading wall papers to brittle
drying floor boards to cracking
a parched thirst consuming
what was our close manner

So I will impose
a thickened silence
pushing misconceptions
and wishful thinking
out vents and air ducts
an exhalation of dust filled aches
now singed and stinking
of all the things
never meant to be