Shadow

by J.I. Kleinberg

I am here to return the bowl.
The door is never locked.
The house does not smell of cinnamon.

“Sketches of Spain” not on the turntable, 
not in its red-yellow-black sleeve. 

Sermon unfinished on the desk,
map open on the sink.
The closet is not empty.

The bedroom light glares
behind its square of frosted glass,

bedside floor polished
by knees and prayers.
The cat sits on the windowsill.

The window is open,
shade a yellow tattered scroll

raised halfway, or lowered.
The crow, itself a shadow,
is not in the cedar tree,

not on the clothesline
with its sagging bag of pins.

The bowl is filled with apples.
What have you given away?
I do not want to learn 
the language of your absence.

::

Three-time Nominee for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards, J.I. Kleinberg is an artist, poet, and freelance writer. Her poetry has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Diagram, The Indianapolis Review, The Madrona Project, Sheila-Na-Gig, and many other print and online journals and anthologies worldwide. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, USA, and online at chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com and on Instagram @jikleinberg. Her chapbooks The Word for Standing Alone in a Field (Bottlecap Press), How to pronounce the wind (Paper View Books), and Desire’s Authority (Ravenna Press Triple Series No. 23) were published in 2023; She needs the river (Poem Atlas) was published in 2024 and Sleeping Lessons is forthcoming from Milk & Cake Press in December.

Image: Ivanka Krochak

ID: bowl of red apples.