Let It Be Extravagant

by Michelle Reale

There were no omens to speak of. Things either happened or they didn’t. The bags of salt nailed into every doorway ensured that the evil spirits would have to count every grain before they entered, but shortcuts were taken, we know that now. We could feel them sidled up beside us when we were happiest, amorphous figures in black, undefined, and terrifying. We counted our blessings just in case, but knew that a phone call would come, sooner or later. My grandmother once looked across the street to see three of her many siblings, dead 50 years or more, gathered on the corner. One was smoking an unfiltered cigarette. We believed every word. As my mother made a cup of coffee one early evening, she saw her daughter-in-law’s hand, dead from the cancer that ravaged her, lifted up to the outline of her unsmiling face, as though to say something, but thinking better of it. Later she described it as a beautiful hesitation. I called my mother the same evening to say that I, too, had seen her as she took the steps in my house two at a time until she reached the top. For years there was a room whose threshold I could not cross. People have grown weary listening to the nakedness of our dreams and visions. I have compassion for them, but only to a point. I hear a persistent hymn sung by a woman in a contralto voice that quivers, though I cannot discern the words, nor the direction from which it comes. Sorrow is always at the same distance from every center, extravagant and unashamed. I keep a window open in every room, a knife in every drawer.

Misinterpreted

by Michelle Reale

In the cold light of day the bruised lips speak more than the bruised body might dare. Love generated by guilt will always exit through the unlocked door. We blame ourselves. There is a hollowed-out space where we nest our young, but who are also urged to fly before anyone is ready for it to happen. The haunting sound of an airport piano played out of key but with sincerity give a clue as to all that is wrong with this world. We adjust to the discordant with ease like lying. What might sustain us in flight and during flights of fancy falls in and out of fashion. Leaving is always inevitable. The food we think we want still leaves us hungry and parched. We feed ourselves by hand, thinking it elemental, that it might make our ancestors smile. We imagine them, gapped-toothed, teeth in the drawer only to be worn on a happy occasion. We are stripped down in what we want and what we can reasonably expect. Our spirits are like fish out of water. We divine a lineage of fulfillment without the security of promise. Like large sharks circling fresh blood.

Michelle Reale is the author of several poetry and flash collections, including Season of Subtraction (Bordighera Press, 2019) and BloodMemory (Idea Press), and In the Year of Hurricane Agnes (Alien Buddha Press). She is the Founding and Managing Editor for both OVUNQUE SIAMO: New Italian-American Writing and The Red Fern Review. She teaches poetry in the MFA program at Arcadia University.