Solitaries
A half-golden window. Lined, shadow-speckled
The gray corona’s eye lay, paling at the sill
There must have been roaches, cicadas, air, squirrels,
Oriels and ants almost dancing to breezes.
Higher in fronds of gold, among stones,
Youth among the many-hidden lives.
Her yard under years, a foot stirred the stones.
Though she is planted in the morning room.
There God and his greenery are dreams powered down.
In this little box streams the golden rod
The air in nodes of hay, poking
The finer draperies. The art is rich.
Here is ache in shinola, nomadism canned –
And here death isn’t as dark. Just a flash, a dampening.
Embarrassingly numb, an easy affliction. Solitaries
keep hours on this side of the glass, knees buckled
Eyes set to horrible peacefulness, metered and
round, blue, discernable only as a tear
in the fabric of the reclining chair by the ottoman.
-Nina Alvarez
Poem of the Month 
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