Nobody told us
we would grow old
inside small houses;
our rectangle gardens
hitched to the backs of our garages,
with three weak tomatoes
considering red.
We couldn’t predict
how everything would obey
small rules; how
their smallness
would capture us, making us
nearly invisible;
all our movements
completed inside a circle,
a track trod
until it furrows:
bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom.
We walk a careful path
between objects: less touching
the difficult surfaces; less
brushing against the stucco
or smelling the papery rot
of the birches; less
pushing our limits to friction;
until we no longer snap
into flame, never crack
with energy. How life
succumbs to half-life. How the body
wants entropy.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 6.
Emily August is an associate professor of literature at Stockton University, where she teaches courses in 19th-century British literature and culture, medical humanities, literatures of crime and detection, and creative writing. Her scholarly research examines literary, clinical, and visual representations of the body, and the role of the sciences in perpetuating violence against the body. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in Callaloo, Cimarron Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, Southern Humanities Review, and other journals.
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