PARIS REVIEW POETRY
By Nell Wright
the future
will we inherit everything
on the internet:
miles of sand melted into windows, click
let’s try a more
domestic framing, angle your hands
in the shape of a rooftop, someone was waiting,
look he stands
at the kitchen sink watching trees seethe
or maybe doubled over in private pain—I think
it’s my sister?
they wouldn’t give her an epidural, small risk of pushing
ink into the spine
besides, things happen inside houses,
facing away from the detonation
on TV and whatever comes after, she hangs laundry and buries
a cat in the backyard—that retracted attitude
I don’t wanna scare you but it’s right there
I hovered by Atlantic watching headlights comb pedestrians,
the traffic’s choral plunge forward, everyone in the world heading home
except me—a childhood feeling
so in my mind I reached for you, the person I loved
and we weren’t in the city we were somewhere else, a desert you’d never seen
I was going to show it to you in the future
