[Acknowledging Death Was in the Room…]
John Pursley III
Acknowledging death was in the room, she unwound the clocks & removed the jewelry from the nightstand– the small stack of coins & the blue plastic pillbox that never stayed closed. She ran water in the bathroom, working her hands along the porcelain basin of the sink, refolded the towels and plucked, from the carpet, the small bits of leaves they’d ushered in on their shoes. Outside, a train knocked against the trestles towards Chicago, or Detroit, some city she couldn’t quite conceive of– all those buildings butting up against one another, & to what end? Here is a circle. And here, a square. Here is the rectangle where [insert famous name] saved an orphanage from destruction by fire. Always an orphanage, or runaway bride– a kidney-shaped pool being drained of water. Always the encapsulary fragment that says we are moved…are moving. And what of it? she might have asked, his clothes neatly stacked by the door to their bedroom, what of it?
Mungo 