Saying It

Leaves flap through the dark windows
like stiff-veined flags. Wind stirs
much of the street. An uncut lime

is small and fits in the palm’s hollow,
near the wrist. It turns like a key:
the apartment door and the neighbors’

door, the front door to the sidewalk
beneath the tree of urgent flags,
and the windows which seem so much

like passages—— should be looked through,
but not stepped through. Inside the refrigerator,
the light blinks out again,

again the calm of cold puts off expiration
a little longer. The smell of the wind
before its charge through the window,

the odor of gas announces the maniacal blue flame,
rising smoke wraith and the sweet forgiving smell,
the long dedication of the tea whistles, the tea’s

wheaty steam. On the teacup’s lip, very nearly
saying it. There is no detail. No turn to make.
Only the heat before, the heat after.

This poem first appeared in Drunken Boat #1.