Tag: storm

Four Poems by Dolo Diaz

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Father at the Stove

Father was a picky eater.
Mother would fuss over the stove,
a different pot for each of us.
It was her undoing.
She would make cod for me.
Brother, sister, other dishes.
But Father was exotic:
razor clams, conger fish
goose barnacles—
all fine, till the egg.
The fried egg.
It was her Everest.
Her culinary summit
unconquered.
Arguments would flare,
the yolk was cold.
Father would demonstrate
with another egg.
Mother, humiliated,
Father at the stove
pouring hot oil
over the yolk.
The family meal
disrupted.
Irretrievably.

*

The Morning After the Storm

I walk into the fresh battlefield
to inspect the fallen limbs.
Which tree do they belong to?

The shapes they take—
landing and settling,
a second planting.

The missing sound
of the open wound.

The creek rages,
chocolate-thick,
oxidized venous blood
carrying limbs lost upstream.

There is a hush in destruction,
pregnant with sound.
It fades slowly,
like folding eggs into batter.

If you listen carefully,
you can hear the hum.

After the storm,
what needed to break
has broken,
and stilled.

*

Forcing Last Rites on My Father

Calling the priest never crossed our minds.
Religion was not your cup of tea.
But your sister insisted, called him anyway
behind our backs. And when he arrived—
black robes cloaking a flawed man—
he insisted too and barged into your room.
You sat there, puzzled by the vials of oil
and paraphernalia. We were kids, peering through
the cracked door, tears of helplessness.
When he was done, we cursed him down the stairs.
He claimed God was on his side.
We knew better.

* 

The Chestnut Grove

You took us to the mountains
to show us the forestland
we would inherit—
the three of us.

I don’t remember what
my two siblings were promised,
but mine was the old chestnut grove.

Ancient, contorted trees
offering green, spiky parcels
cradling leathery fruit.

Trees native to the land,
unlike the eucalyptus
crowding all around us.

I think about that grove—
seen only once
four decades ago,
three of those you’ve been gone.

Your will, still unsettled,
the land still waiting,
the trees still bearing chestnuts
every fall.

*

Dolo Diaz is a scientist / poet with roots in Spain, currently residing in California. Her work has appeared/forthcoming in ONE ART, The Summerset Review, Third Wednesday, The Lake, among others. Website: dolodiaz.com.

After the Radiators Turn On by Elena Rotzokou

~ ONE ART ~ 3 Comments

After the Radiators Turn On

In the early dark the city is a lung
learning its own weather again—
steam lifting from manholes,
a soft animal breath that fogs the streetlights
into halos you could almost touch.

I walk past the bodegas’ bright fruit,
their oranges stacked like small suns
held in place by netting,
and the florist’s buckets—
tulips sealed in clear sleeves
like letters that won’t open until morning.

Somewhere above me a radiator coughs
and begins its long persuasion,
metal warming to a low hymn.
The pipes talk in ticks and knocks,
a code for staying.

On the corner a man salts the sidewalk
as if he’s blessing it,
white grit scattering like crushed shells.
The salt remembers oceans
even here, even now,
even between brick and subway grates.

At the bus stop, strangers become a little family
without ever looking up:
the shared choreography of shifting weight,
the way we hold our phones like talismans,
the small courtesy of making room
for each other’s coats and breath.

I think about how winter edits everything—
strips the trees down to their sentences,
makes every branch a question
asked in black against the sky.
And still the sparrows persist,
pinpricks of life
stitching noise into the cold.

Later, indoors, I peel off my scarf
and the room smells faintly of wool and heat.
On the windowsill, a glass of water
has gone quiet and perfectly clear,
holding the last light
as if it’s something borrowed.

Then the building settles—
one deep click in the walls—
and the water in the glass shivers,
a thin ring traveling outward
as if a fingertip touched it.

Outside, a siren unspools and thins,
somewhere a door slams,
somewhere a train passes underfoot
and the window gives back a faint tremor.
The light breaks in the water, recomposes—
not mercy, not lesson—
just proof that even stillness
has a pulse.

*

Elena Rotzokou is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York and a PhD student in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Her research focuses on Romanticism, ecocriticism, and the ways poetic form registers environmental change.