Upstairs - R. A. Allen
Dust motes on the windowpanes
refract April's slanted rays,
all but obscuring his view
of the kidney-shaped pool below,
rain-filled and choked with duckweed.
Two winter's worth of windblown leaves
lie in slopes against the garden wall.
Dust on the blinds.
Dust (unreachable) atop the armoire,
Dust-fustiness rising
from the pages of the book
in his lap. Gibbon: II.
Copyright 1952
All rights reserved
He's scarcely turned a page all afternoon.
What was that noise down in the kitchen?
The visitation of a memory?
A delusion born of longing?
He tries to remember exactly when
she took that tumble down the stairs.
Originally published by En Bloc #2 (UK), June 2021
R. A. Allen has published in the New York Quarterly, B O D Y, The Penn Review, RHINO, The Los Angeles Review, Lotus-eater, The Waxed Lemon, etc. His work has been nominated for a BOTN and two Pushcarts. He has fiction in publications such as The Literary Review, The Barcelona Review, PANK, and Best American Mystery Stories. He lives in Memphis, the one on the Mississippi River.
https://nyq.org/poets/poet/raallen
https://bodyliterature.com/2020/02/17/r-a-allen/
