Threshold
You poisoning your own curing spring by diving in. You can stay on the lawn, starving on milk and rice, hooting mildly for someone to come. It’s already morning. Phlox packed in tessellate ribs around. Sandy cabin floor. A pivot point. History turns to see itself. A pang. A very very thin wall between this and that person, such a small force, silence.
Virgin
After the dance I kept quiet for a long time. A storm came and I was coatless. I took the alley to the museum but did not go in. I’d seen the moss in nooks no one bothered and crabgrass and cinderblocks and chair parts where everyone lives but us. The main bird chants and the faint bird mocks back. It’s my mind, christ, the leaking between them.
My minds compete lightly in a footrace and I win least of all. A knotted stocking just like mine hung from a branch. I had been ridiculous all day. Not a coward.
Molly Brodak is the author of A Little Middle of the Night (U of Iowa Press, 2010) and three chapbooks of poetry. Her memoir Bandit is forthcoming in 2016 from Grove/Atlantic.
