print previewback MOLLY SPENCER
Poem that Begins on a Staircase
Night’s kinship behind me now,
the bed’s dream-shaken,
desolate sheets.
Out the window, a blithe blue sky
I traded for all those gales.
And morning rising up the stairs
like smoke from a low fire—
news of other rooms
and longitudes.
Police Swarm Hostage Sites Killing Gunmen.
Woman Killed by Truck
Carrying Bees. Mom, did you know
we’re out of milk again. The kitchen now—
the watched pot,
the hand that feeds. The children
are older, have unraveled
from my side. And my love,
always brittle anyway, breaking
where it should bear
weight. Still,
every morning I startle
at their flight,
their bright, unworried departures.
Door to the jagged world
open wide, and their bodies
clinking through it
like the day’s loose change. 
Elegy
Poem that Begins on a Staircase