1425 riverside, apt. b
BY MICHELLE TURNER
In this life,
the questionable answer
is always water,
more water,
rain pooling in windowsills,
my home a basement,
color of butter in lamplight.
Three little rooms
and a galley kitchen,
contentment gathering
like cat hair in corners,
or, outside,
snow that knits a curtain
up the door.
We settle in softly,
snow and I.
Snow departs
as swiftly as it arrives,
and I say, Teach me.
I say, I am okay
waking to showers
over my sofa, the boiler room
flooding above.
There is nothing
that can’t be fixed,
and this is almost true
if fixing is knowing
that nothing is fixed at all.
In this life, the Poudre
spills its banks,
swallows bicycle paths,
turns fields to lakes.
The lower roads
return to earth and water.
Logs from last year’s fire
spin and dip down the river,
spearing up through the torrent
for a new, violent life.
I lie asleep dreaming
a distant calm, faint drums,
a future in which I share a storm
with one who sips it slowly.
My phone chimes at 4 a.m.
with a pre-recorded warning:
shelters, closures.
I make coffee and listen again.
The bridges are blinking
out.
