By Amy Simone Piller
Your accents are different.
That is allthough in attentivenessyou periodically panicthat you straddle continents.
But panicking is not periodic,so let me reassure.
Remember the Bering Land Bridgeexists only under water—a connection greaterthan ocean ships shaking.
Were you impossibly in sync(two conch shells around one head)you would no longer be two,instead overlappedcrest to trough,no excitement to graph.
A wave alonemisses [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
“Who threw the eraser?Who tripped into whom? Who pushed?Who apologized? Whose father leftthis morning?â€
Newspaper on the doorstep:“Children’s Health Insurance PlanVetoed.â€
Veto.
It could be a vocabulary word. “Children, copy it down—this is how your country’s failingyou. Look I can show you howto read this nonsense.There goes thirty five billion dollarsthat might have fixed your glasses,that you [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
It is easy to write myself throughthe view, my bay windowstolid and sprinkledwith familied children and shouts of “Watch out!â€
But here, scaffolding risesaround lost little lungs;hammers hacking asbestos.
In this classroom there is little one could understandwithout being a fly.(We are all in too deep).
Windows are barred, dirty.Not seeing out is how it is,these things [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I catch myself talking to the toastercoaching “you’re not done,â€turning up the heat, slowly learning the insignificanceof buttons.
I start to think,if you were here you might think I’ve lostmy mind,only there is no youwho might actually think that.
There is the toaster,who with some patience,was coaxed to make me smile.
I have a hundred papers to [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
We’re in the aftermathof a paddle passing forward—growing concentric circlesdecreasing droplets, wondering ifyou’ve sucked me dry.
It is not this simple,the seaweed has my paddle,and the river is no sink.It continues, and we lack drainpipes or any attachmentto self, still together.
On the bus home,I nearly fall inthe portable toilet.
Where did the river go?This is not the [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
There is little sound on the train platformless the busker’s foot tapping something he hopes someone will hear.
It is late in the city that neverrecycles right. Sleep stealssomething daily, rejuvenation at a premium.
I want to stay later, longer,have tomorrow come alreadywhen the kids run the halls againclass to class, the rush of routine. [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I would like to say,“I’m unsurewhat I did to offend you on this glorious morning†with an ugly, sarcastic grin.
But you will sulk and say “But I wasn’t talking,â€and I will say“But you are now,â€and you will say“Butâ€And I will say“I don’t care,â€and it will not be a glorious morninganymore.
Except the problem is I [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
In my new apartmentmy father tells mehe tacked the “Hoosier†signto the cabinetafter it fell off.
It is my mothers’ cabinet,their old house files forwardin the rolodex of imagesas he gazes at it.
“I couldn’t get it quite right,â€
“But at least you got it onâ€I say.
I am the sugarat the bottom of their ice coffee
By Amy Simone Piller
From two blocks downI see Marie’s distinctive frame—the heavy shift from left foot to rightthe square shoulders of a coat too bigand a body too frail.
You never know how lucid or notshe might be, shift stepping towards November’s dementia.
Nobody likes to see an old ladylost and cold.
In the summer, I thought her sharp,sitting outside in [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
In the back car of the F train,I hug the subway pole again.
Lost and full of defenseslisted litanies of whywhat I do cannot be good enough, until you call meon inabilityto accept much movingforward,
forward is nowhere I thinkwhere there are cores of earthbeneath us, trees rising with a sense of wonder.Sense? Senses can’t [...]