Michael Robins

Ours Was the Room Upstairs

The handful of minutes alone at the curb, among the sidewalks & the dark circles of their ancient gum to where the retail giants soon will call it quits tonight. Surely, I could have a tailored suit or just stay home, rearrange the dozen coffee mugs in our cupboard. Long ago, I thought divorce might be the hardest thing before someone, somewhere, somehow ends up dead & the conversation moves to baseball, to weather, to anything other than the center of the spider’s web or the yellowjackets afloat along the edge of the pool. Faces in the changing leaves, this respite, the soured shape of the zinnias in your garden.

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