Jared Beloff

Returning from the Dead to Stare at Random Objects

after Emma Bolden

The silverware leapt from the drawer,
my shelves, stacked books, playbills
and figurines gone too. You left the pillows
on the right side of the bed, changed their cases,
folded a towel to hang on the rack

like a drop at the faucet’s rim.
I thought of run-off, the rainbowed sidewalk
as we walked home from the park. Salmon arched
in the wrong direction on grocery advertisements.
We stopped arguing against things, let them wash
across scales back out to a middle distance—

You caught me staring again.  We touch
this silence, feel its heft, size its waist.
I keep expecting the tide, a naked moon.
I return to the pillows. What do you want?
A spoon lies face down in the drawer. I return
it to the others, their heads caught, cradled.

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Jared Beloff lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters. His debut poetry collection, Who Will Cradle Your Head, is forthcoming with ELJ Press in February 2023. He is the editor of the Marvel inspired poetry anthology, Marvelous Verses. You can find his work online at www.jaredbeloff.com.