Robert Scotellaro

R o b e r t   S c o t e l l a r o

In a House Where Maelstroms Share a Room

next

Regret is a blind jockey on a milk box

brushing a black horse named Midnight.

In the thinnest hours, I wonder if you have

to bypass Heaven to get to Mars.

Consider the contrast: all those white robes/

space.

In The Book of Scars it tells how

the night's ruptures are the slowest to heal.

Of fished-out angels tossed back

with a black splash,

too small to keep.

Polylingual

I speak Quietude

(with all its complex grammar)

seeing the backyard fence with

moonlight caught

between its teeth.

I speak Sputter, realizing nothing

can debride the sirens from the night.

And sometimes, breathing in

the contrails of a fleeing wonder,

I speak Got away.