1/24/2018 Poetry by Nick StanovickDial-Tone you wake to the woodpecker, an empty milk carton, and no clean socks nothing new Excitement and Purpose eloped and you can't find an address to reach them. the killdeer guards its nest, the garden hose frowns over its hook in the yard. you work like the woodpecker’s beak, incessantly and with nothing to show for it Enough yesterday the bank called and you told them they had the wrong number. the day before you spotted your sister at the park but kept walking, and between your footsteps, you asked Siri questions just to hear a voice answer you Siri tell me who I am to which she said error, error, error and you were satisfied. you took the sign from your neighbors lawn and ate meatloaf on it, sitting in their yard beside the fence, ketchup and grease smeared over the American Dream. you knew it was ironic because you studied irony in school. you laughed and then noticed you were laughing so you stopped. the voice in your head has turned automated, its responses predictable and apathetic. Life calls and you tell it to leave a message after the laughter, Life hangs up because it knows better. the sky sings in a purple tune, you count the cars that pass your window until one hits the killdeer. you walk to her nest throw an egg as high as you can, it hangs, then plummets, before splatting onto the tar. Used love does not want this body so I leave her and bring it to you forgive me, what is your name again? fall-back-girl you kissed once in a summer meadow and I remember, your purple dress shaming the tulip’s color mallards pulling beetles from the dirt the memory of my failed-love as far as the threat of winter. yeah, it’s me again loveless as the doe whose buck I shot last spring. forgive me, for I’ve already bit into your giving heart blood like licorice down my chin let-down-boy with stomach gorged on your false promise and the guilt comes, it does when you reach for my hand and I pretend to scratch my beard. forgive-- tell me the truth when you’re sleeping I whisper apologies like prayers into the dark but in the morning I thank you for the oatmeal steal another kiss before the bus comes blame the wind as to why I didn’t hear you ask will you stay this time? For the First Time in Twelve Years, I Draw a Bath hold my legs to my chest, flatten my cheek against my bony kneecap. the tub can’t figure out how to house me, waterline barely reaching the tops of my shins, but I let warmth envelop me, for once. the last three nights I got high and cried until I couldn’t. she’s been gone four years, ample time to make amends to frame the obituary, tattoo her handwriting on my arm, and I have, I’ve done and done and everything else too grieved the ‘right’ way and the ‘strong’ way and I’m still here. why won’t the well dry? bathwater through my hair, soap the stench of cheap barbeque off my arms no candles. no music. the drain groans for a good meal. a season of stillness, what happens when the mind has time to catch its breath: there she is, white streak in her hair, forty-three and laughing. and I am crying, again. disturbing the placid water with salt, watching everything drain but the grief. ![]() Bio: Nick Stanovick is a graduate of Temple University, a Babel Poetry Collective alumni, and an International Poetry Slam Champion. His poems have appeared in Spillway, Vinyl, Public Pool, Rising Phoenix Review, Drunk In a Midnight Choir, and SickLit Magazine among others. He’s currently a Masters candidate at Auburn University, where he studies Composition and Rhetoric and eats many grilled cheese sandwiches. Comments are closed.
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