At breakfast, she thinks of
linens to press and
dishes to stack on
shelves lined with
flowered paper,
teacups on brass hooks.
Done then undone
by tonight’s dinner,
the blood red stains,
the days dark so soon,
and no one noticing.
I can repair it,
her daughter will think,
as she holds a cracked teacup
her mother left behind and .
no one will know how
it holds together, by
what perilous cement.
Carla Sarett’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Third Wednesday, Prole, The Virginia Normal, Boston Literary Review; and her essays have been nominated for Best American Essay and the Pushcart Prize. Her debut novel, A Closet Feminist, will be published in 2022. Carla lives in San Francisco.
© 2020, Carla Sarett
Halfway Down the Stairs 