August 30, 2013

How many hours have touched? The white sweater you knit for winter, the book’s frame faded to its spine. Melita writes you without knowing and—it’s worn, isn’t that what counts? I read you on the bus today, your voice a distant opening. We buy more bookshelves—a choice you can only dream of. This morning, I fashion a table from an old cabinet split into thirds, while thinking of what it takes to cut a door only a few eyes can see. The basement is filled with cardboard and old wrapping, but I’m afraid to ask Sarah to pick it up. What does it mean to make space where there is none? I want to ask you questions and have the answers come back in my own voice.

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Jacob Victorine is a performance poet and MFA graduate of Columbia College Chicago. Nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize, his poems appear in places such as DIALOGIST, Columbia Poetry Review, Phantom Limb, PANK and Muzzle Magazine, for which he also writes book reviews. He is an editorial assistant for Court Green.