Illustration by Tomiris Tatisheva
I remembered to empty
the toaster crumb tray
yesterday, and when my brother
washed the dishes I felt as if
the kitchen was coming together.
And the mugs shone planetary
across the evening room, it’s the
evening light, I swear, it’s primordial.
My favorite story
is the bridge-split lake, how the boats
meet each other in the middle, how the
stomach swells and dips when fish die.
From the kitchen window,
the story is hardly poster-sized,
hardly enough
to simmer in a heavy pen,
though the bridge is a fell swoop,
the smooth cull of ink across
a vacant paper body. I remembered
to empty the toaster crumb tray
if only to feed the ducks
the bits, they fall in line,
the feathers scroll and scroll and scroll
and this is how I burnt my knees,
the deck-ish concrete, offering
as water weaved lace against
the heart of my toaster ducks.
Maybe this is my favorite story,
how the kitchen is a stomach
turned inside out, how the family
digs and digs without meaning
to give, and yet it’s all steaming, laid
yolk-like on the basin of a plastic plate,
and from the cliffy dockside
the boats nod and nod and bow
below the bridge, the ducks, the belt
bellows some song I can’t help
but overhear, and when water licks
the shore it is the soapy curl
of my brother’s wrist, above the sink.
Phoebe Mulder (she/her) is a first-year at Barnard College studying English, but please don't hold her to that. She loves postcards and snow in theory.