The Cardsharp
by Rachel Andelman
At the point of rain, after you've spoken
with the night, wandering the rooms under
headphones, you leave again impossibly
to see her. Birds go on the ground and
in food barrels. They dodge horse mouths
and lose feathers between titanic rectangling
teeth. Has she forgiven the bad weather
that hung on your affair, the girls that slept
in your bookcase and crashed all the books,
who conspired to rectangle your feathers?
After she had carried your luggage and cooked
in your mother's kitchen, after that.
Their company was cold corners when you
were prickling heat, the B-side of the pillow.
Sleep is so blessed, and worth dismantling
the days to achieve the right cheek to draw
close. The couch is a futureless bed, a song
you wish had strings. The time spent on
the treehouse, the splinters swallowed only
tempts you back inside. The others are straws
in your drink. Receiving the fruits of the ceiling
fan, you wait that the room will increase its
curtains. At once, it fills with sharks.
You brush hair and acknowledge as the food
is laid that she knows. The day is on its
horse that you'll ask forgiveness. The surprise
is you won't mean it. Even as you present
yourself to a dissolving sea, you cannot
discard those nights. The best go in a drawer.
Rachel Andelman is from Medford, Massachusetts. She is currently studying film at Bard College and working as an intern in New York City. Her fiction appears in Pequin. She can be reached at [email protected].