Try not to think about
the edge of the room.
Or the key
locked in the box
it was meant to open.
Listen to the sputtering
machine, how it
clears its throat.
One day you'll
be listening
and know that
silence
is a box full of air;
it’s a vault
where gold bars sit
waiting for someone
to remember them.
What the baby thinks when no one's there. What windows see. The patch of fur caught under the car's tire though she doesn't remember the thunk. How salmon know to swim. A dog quartering a field—how it knows. One day, the butcher gives her an extra cut on the house, leering at her breast. One day she looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize her mouth, how it moves, how it moves and doesn’t make noise.
Jessica Poli is the editor of Birdfeast and an MFA candidate at Syracuse University. Her first chapbook, The Egg Mistress, was published by Gold Line Press in 2013. She can be found at andthegoldrush.tumblr.com.