Page 44 - Demo

diana riCKard
Still Life
The apartment is on some sort of motor, like a constant, totally low-grade imperceptible earthquake
recognized by the slight,
very slight
vibration of the fridge
and there is filmic beauty
in the eye of a lilted tulip
in a reaching stalk.
Almost everything that is not alive once was.
Even the plastics
came from coal, salt.
Maybe a dish has the tiniest pulse. The trees are in the chairs, communicating
through ageless networks
of fungal air.
Fields are in the brew.
The mug reflects a face,
and a perfect lemon
sits inside a mind,
solid and clear as the day is long. Its oils and juice sting the room that continues to breathe
and move.
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Rickard’s poems have appeared in The Outrider Review, Mayday Magazine and streetnotes. An Associate Professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, she lives in Brooklyn, NY.