New Haven
There was a time when we both worked
companionably from home.
Acre of grass. Goats
on the property behind us.
I made my own coffee now.
Moved the philodendrons
around to different windows. The third-floor tenants
left for class. Before, when I felt this way,
I’d throw myself against his larger body,
hear my mind’s steady thump.
The landlord was installing
a new hot-water heater,
so I didn’t shower.
From the stoop, I watched
a lampshade rolling past.
In several hours, I might hear
the sound our car made
when he checked that it was locked.
Little beep.
My thoughts, I thought.
A Warning
All the leaves were down
in West Kill. I was on a trail
but not so far from here,
I’d had a life.
Sam and Timmy had one now,
not far
in the opposite direction.
The day before,
I’d driven there.
The tire pressure light came on.
I told myself
it was the cold.
Driving back, it was so dark
it was like driving into death—
that feeling that I might dissolve.
From his bed,
Sam understood.
Like an epilogue
I shouldn’t be present for.
Or it was
what Liam said
about riding the bike at night.
Feeling like one with the trees
and not wanting to be.
I had
my interlocutors.
But on the trail, inside my head,
old thoughts amassed
like leaves in the river,
plastered to rocks.
The wind was picking up.
The trees creaked
like a floor.
You have to ignore
certain warnings.
Feeling like one.
Not wanting to be.
Rachel Mannheimer was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she works as an international literary scout and as a contributing editor to The Yale Review. Her first book, Earth Room, was selected by Louise Glück as the inaugural winner of the Changes Book Prize and published in 2022.
Instagram & X: @mannheimerup
