I REMEMBER THE STAIRS
by MATTHEW GELLMAN
I had a date with a photographer
who told me under a Tiffany lamp
my face had the signs of neglect
he liked; he wanted to photograph me.
After three rounds of Guinness
we walked home arm in arm
under frothing dogwoods, although
I shouldn’t use the word home,
should be wary of where I assign it.
I remember how much taller he was
in the dark of his living room,
the purple tie he used to tie
my hands, and the hair on his hands.
But I mostly remember the stairs
leading up to his door, how we looked
at our shoes before entering, and how
little his shoulders or the lights
in the hall reminded me of you.
On the top stair of my childhood,
silence floated in panes of glass—
I posed for the shock ambivalence
of sun coming over the hedges,
my family still as pieces of farm machinery
in a field at night, nothing to bind us
except for the smudge of moonlight
over our heads. If I squinted, I could see
a trace of mountains limned by dusk,
though everything felt farther away
than it was in those days. And the tree
on the front lawn so many mornings
bifurcated by autumn: its gold appetite
for beauty, its red appetite for grief.
If I’m telling you this now,
it’s not because it will alter
our ending. My mouth tends to embarrass me,
lingering where it shouldn’t, and I hope
you can see the black clay of anger
that hardened in the bowels
of that house, why I’m used to fumbling
for the right thing to say to a turned back.
The next morning, walking
into the sun, he wrapped his weight
around mine. The smell of bergamot.
The soft middle of his body.
I didn’t know if he would call.
Or if I would. Above,
the wind dislodged a blossom
and hurried it toward the sky.
author pic here
Matthew Gellman ’s first book, Beforelight, was selected by Tina Chang as the winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Prize and was published by BOA Editions, Ltd. in 2024. His second book, The Understudy, is forthcoming from Four Way Books. He is the recipient of grants and fellowships form the National Endowment for the Arts, Brooklyn Poets, Adroit‘s Djanikian Scholars Program, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and elsewhere. His poems have appeared in Bennington Review, Prairie Schooner, Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Los Angeles and is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California.
Next ( Sam Bailey) >
< Previous ( Kira Tucker)