James Scales: April 2017 Poet of the Month

Noah Silliman

TIME WAS THE PRETTY THING

Hospital visits, uncle funerals. All weekend.

Once I thought all I’d ever need was this. Your arms.

Crossed. The woodpecker flutters stage left (exitus).

You used to love me in the morning. Those bells for church.

You look away.

The glass pitcher of lemonade scrapes over the glass table.

Where do we start?

Paint chips under fingernails.

Rot everywhere. Notice surrender.

I never pictured a face when I pictured your face.

A stack of bills. The view from going under.

Do we need to replace each one or all of them at once?

This has been going on for so long.

My face stuck to the window.

Deer in the forest.

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James Scales earned an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. His work has appeared in Go Places, Sinker Cypress Review, and The Birds We Piled Loosely, and is forthcoming in the Brooklyn Review. He lives and works in New York City's oldest building.