Penumbra. Michael Shewmaker

       One

       Winter Ghazal

      The longest month of the year is December.

      Do you remember the nights of December?

      I’m told in the town where we slept together,

      the migrating geese still cry in December.

      Bundled but cold in the freezing drizzle,

      we tried to admire the lights of December.

      Please tell me the story of the Pleiades—

      those grieving sisters in the sky of December.

      In the back of your closet, a single hanger.

      The boom of the owl rewrites my December.

      Rereading another unanswered letter,

      you refuse to write a reply in December.

      You always predicted the winds of winter.

      The open window invites in December.

      Michael, I’m asked, in which month were you born?

      I was born in June—but I’ll die in December.

       Diorama

       Stairs

      Beneath the banister,

      along the wall, two racks of shoes

      and a tall, black grandfather clock.

      Its face reads eight o’clock.

      It chimes. A wooden woman

      walks a small mechanical plank.

      A row of portraits scales the stairs,

      each larger than the last.

       Bedroom

      Greens and yellows. A man leans

      hard on the bathroom door.

      Covered in a ringed quilt,

      the bed is meticulously made.

      Too many pillows. Matching lamps

      light the matching nightstands.

      His hand jostles the knob.

      Everything is in its place.

       Kitchen

      In the center of the room,

      a table left in ruin—

      a meal heaped on three plates,

      a fourth shattered on the floor.

      Milk trickles from a tiny mug

      onto the tile. A dog

      with different-colored eyes

      licks cautiously along the grout.

       Hallway

      Down the narrow corridor,

      more portraits, a glass case

      lined with porcelain dolls,

      a runner leading toward a door

      latched against the dark. A lone

      light glows beneath the dolls.

      They float above their stands,

      ordered in descending rows.

       Bathroom

      The vanity reflects

      the floral trimming. Violets.

      A woman, sitting with her back

      to the door, hides her eyes.

      Behind the half-drawn curtain

      in a clawfoot tub, the children wait—

      propped on its lip like cherubs—here,

      where no one will cry out.

       The Neighbors Upstairs

      They only stirred at night while we were sleeping.

      In a small space that must have mirrored ours,