The winter the neighbor explained to her child
that a seven story building refers to the number of floors
and not, in fact, to a unique book assigned to each one,
you forgot how to color between the lines,
how to melody a piano, how to insert a window
in the rest of your life
& move, quietly, through the glass.
Sometimes, what hurt the most was a comb through your hair,
or a woman in the next stall with her back bent,
heaving, & the small, startling ineptitude
of your ability to save her.
Sometimes, what hurt the most
was your childhood phone number lost to memory,
its digits swimming down darkly through the depths.
But there was a blood moon, once, pinned to the sky
like an iris, & the thought of an apartment building
filled with books, & the silver dollars dredged from the culvert
while your brother built a fort made of branches,
and sometimes, just for awhile,
that was enough.
Meggie Royer (she/her) is a Midwestern writer and the founder and editor-in-chief of Persephone’s Daughters, a journal for abuse survivors. She has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and has been published in journals such as The Minnesota Review, The Rumpus, San Antonio Review, and more. She thinks there is nothing better in this world than a finished poem. Her work can be found at meggieroyer.com.
Image: “Building/Vacancy” by Alex J. Tunney
Pine Hills Review 