Before dawn, the desert air
tastes different, the click
of an old analogue clock
moves differently, the cross-stitch
adorning it rests differently in its frame.
The pages of the book of plans
open differently, cracked and moldy,
the stain of betrayals of what was written
years past. Less than forgotten: evaporated,
promises like fruit flies, not made to last the night.
Different too: the child’s touch,
come once again to our bed, stretching
wide between our bodies in an H,
jolting me here, to the first words recorded
on this new shore.
An elegy for the sleep
not returning now or ever, an ode
to the loneliness that lives only
in quiet desert rooms.
That other loneliness. The loneliness
longed-for. The open door.
It must be a dry loneliness,
witnessed only by a scrub jay and a doll
half-stuffed in a box. Not yet dawn.
I watch them back.
The doll’s dumb glassy eye stares me down.
Asking, what if this watching
were not the dumb idleness
of tourists, but work?
The other task, the other book,
the great unread, the silent dust
bearing the signature of every silent hand.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 5.
Laura Tanenbaum is a writer, teacher and parent. She has published poetry and short fiction in venues including Aji, Catamaran, Cleaver Magazine, Trampoline, Rattle, and many others. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, Dissent, Entropy, and elsewhere. She is a Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York.
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