a fidgeting foot from Main Street. The walls
are vacuous, beaten by tinny echoes. The ghost of
your madness pulls fistfuls of time at the root.
The windows won’t pull in morning light like when we held you
crying, promising expected endings and solstice moons.
I was one of many walls within which you fell apart or burned.
Attached to this ceiling I craved a truth I did not yet realize
was missing.
You are now a museum a flagged passport away
from where I fight ghosts and Narcissus, pulling dusty wax
from what light I have gathered.
Jacqueline Markowski lives in North Carolina where she homeschools her increasingly independent children, attends college and writes poetry and short stories. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Kentucky Review, Permafrost, Storm Cycle, Rainbow Journal and Blast Furnace and is forthcoming in Bird’s Thumb and San Pedro River Review. A Pushcart prize nominee, she won first place at The Sandhills Writer’s Conference. She is currently working on a collection of poetry.
© 2014, Jacqueline Markowski
Halfway Down the Stairs 