She eats the slice of cake
slowly over three mornings,
stores it in the refrigerator, a
few bites each breakfast,
savors the lingering sense of
“getting away with it,”
frosting first and frosting last.
Between one city park and
another. Where there were
morning birds, we always
found rocks, always found
water, always found bushes
and trees. In the dignified
room, their behavior was
anything but. The curtains
separated light but didn’t
block its entrance. Nor ought
it, in his opinion at least. It
troubles the poinsettia in the
lobby. And any longer we
didn’t need to set our kitchen
up before we cooked, though
only as of late.
Andy Stallings lives, teaches, and coaches cross country running at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. His first book of poems, To the Heart of the World, came out with Rescue Press in 2014, and other poems from Paradise can be found around the internet.