Guest

poetry

Photo by June Gathercole on Unsplash

Guest

The shaving cream has run out.  
Not even one last squirt. 
The blade has lost its edge.  
There are no more in the box. 
The last oatmeal pack is gone.  
There’s plenty of coffee.  
But the pot is broken.  
Junk mail lies all over the study 
where you used to read and write.  
Several ads for work in off-the-map 
places are circled in bloodred ink.  
Every arc is in flight. The door is 
wide open.  The flies are hungry 
and approaching. The lawn is strewn 
with off-white letters. The wind tries 
to form words with them. They roll
together like bundled newspapers.  
Which on closer look, turn out 
to be pheasants.  Plump and freshly 
killed.  One gets up.  It’s the child 
we almost had. Carrying a bottle 
of fine red like an expected guest.
When the sun hits, it looks more 
like a fork and knife.  He speaks
in a language I can’t really understand.  
But I try anyway.  I stand in my boxers
in the yard listening to him talk, looking
to the wind for translation.  Days and
nights are thoroughbreds running 
through my growing beard, my
shivering skin.  He says lots of things.  
But only this I hear:  “Every day is 
a feast of fallen birds.  Eat.  Eat up.”