I Eat Poetry

That Winter, I Could Not Escape the Cellos

To say they followed me--no. They surrounded me, burrowed
their restless fibrillation inside my teeth. Each sigh or swallow
or hiccup sent tremors up and down my throat: Picture stacks
of teacups on saucers set spinning. For the most part the beach
was deserted. Empty oyster shells pinched the shore to pockets.
Wasn’t that the year your mother went crazy? I forget part of every
story. The cellos grew louder each falling sunset when the dolphins
came. It was, you could say, like a movie. After the first storm, with
no more wood to burn, the abacus smoldered in the fireplace and
we stopped adding up the days. That winter, nothing living was safe.
Snowdrifts quickly turned to ice and cleaved the sand; raw winds
purled our voices to our throats. The pear-shaped, stringed uprights
left at the end of January. On rainy days my teeth still ache.


Indiana Review, Winter 2003