DAYTIME IS A WINDOW YOU BUY CURTAINS FOR
Deep in the purple of this room you smuggle enough lightbulbs to make it day,
except these days, a moment of shade would be welcome. In the other room,
you overhear a conversation. Pressing your ear to the door, you catch muffled
phrases like “unfairness of color” and “extension of thread.” Another ear is pressed
to the outside of the door listening to you listen. “What marvelous sound waves”
the other ear whispers. You leave your lightbulbs in a box next to a bed made from
metal feathers. The easiest exit is the window and you hoist yourself onto a row
of hedges cut into silhouettes of shadow. A woman is sunning herself in the front yard.
She’s beginning to burn it’s so bright out. “You might want to apply sunscreen,”
you suggest. She doesn’t look up. You move in front to get her attention
but in the reflection of her sunglasses you see another room. In the room
is another woman sitting at a table slicing the sun. She pops a ray into her mouth.
Rachel Cruea is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She’s originally from Findlay, Ohio. Along with serving as the managing editor of Timber magazine, she is the poetry editor for GASHER and a part-time instructor of creative writing. Her poems have been previously published in editions of The Adroit Journal, The Pinch, Jet Fuel Review, among others.
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