Michael Robins

Domestically Speaking

The pull of the bedsheet. The unexpected hardness of your bones crossing the room before opening the door. Without so much as a nod when the kitchen faucet drips, wears through the finish & then the sink itself, the tile below & beyond the underpinnings, the dreaming cicada, the taproot working its way down & down & down. From where the orange arrives in your hand you cannot say, same for the hurrying shadow of the only cloud for miles, one from which you’d like to draw your hands & drink. No more utterance but the will & last testament for your children, these strangers who spill as though out of nowhere.