Everything
was built in–
clothes bureau, Murphy bed,
in that studio apartment
on Treat Street, the first place
I lived alone.
You could run your fingers
over the gentle curve
of the hallway shelf
and ride its wave. Everything
else in my life stood still,
even the plant in its glazed pot
took the weekly drink I gave it
silently. I waited
for the tide to rise, sweep in
something of my own.
*
Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize, (Evening Street Press 2022). Her chapbook, On Shifting Shoals, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Her poems have or will appear in Poetry East, Calyx, Kosmos Quarterly and many other journals. She lives on the North Carolina coast, with the ocean as her backyard. https://www.joannedurham.com/
