Iceboxes
-for a friend
Morning falters against a layer of embedded light, the bed
of poinsettias in the front yard that suggests season as undying.
In the hallway, you linger as a voice fails to understand its own
motives, grief’s bite or the palate of bodiless memorial. I wish
there was dirt under my fingernails. The sky is inconsequential,
its reach the weight of a word left to pass. It seems that most
people have the capacity to pursue themselves and this morning
there are footprints in the grass, an indention like a last speaking.
There is an indention sweeping the air and I don’t know how
to pursue it. The stairs bite through the house like a candle’s
subtle wilt as the railing gives its posture to the atmosphere’s
grayed filter. I see you here despite the overwhelming reminders
that you are not here. I weigh my hand against the perforated
concrete. We are all hypothetical. I would like to say that I think
of you, but mostly the day buckles. The sky is especially colorless;
no one speaks of anything but the bone-cold touch of iceboxes.
Jacob Hall was raised outside of Atlanta, Ga and is currently a PhD student in English at the University of Missouri. In the past he has worked as the assistant poetry editor for the Mid-American Review, and he currently works as audio editor for The Missouri Review. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Carolina Quarterly, Poetry South, Madcap Review, Santa Ana River Review, Stirring, Origins Journal, Menacing Hedge, and elsewhere.