Out of the forced teak forest of furniture
and out of the rain in these last wet days
in my old apartment -- these last silent days
of Pompeii, I wait for a peculiar death
to turn into life and I listen to Ella singing
her song and I let myself think it's old and tinny
If only I could be neutral, looking for a tile a day
Knowing -- since I cannot touch your knee or ear
this might be the reason for rescuing an apartment
might be why I want only random color and a chair
made to look like a six-fingered wooden animal to hold me
This is also the first time I think singing might be a cop-out:
this is her hammock, this song Ella lives; I hear it, I swing
in it, I try to have fun picking tiles, I tell a self: could be
Ella is just singing and not caring who is out there listening
O just ho-hum these tiles, don't take moving so seriously
-- Rosaly DeMaios Roffman
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman teaches myth and creative writing and is the author four books: Going to Bed Whole, Tottering Places, The Approximate Message and In the Fall of a Sparrow, a chapbook commissioned by the Pennsylvania Governors Institute for the Humanities. She directs the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop, and resides in Oakland and Indiana, Pa. Many writers featured in Chapter & Verse are guests of Prosody, produced by Jan Beatty and Ellen Wadey. Prosody airs every Tuesday night at 7 on independent radio, WYEP 91.3 FM.
