From WTP Vol. V #9

The Heated Windowsill
By Laura Foley

From the darkness of unknowing,
from the steep unlit stairs,
the sudden loss of what
was vibrant, the impossibility
of imagining what comes next—
a room of doors, and which to open?

The monk, across from me at lunch,
tells me how, three days after
his mother’s death,
as he entered a convenience store,
her presence entered him,
has not left him since.

From the darkness of unknowing,
from the inconvenience
of emptiness, we hold
a bowl of ashes, chant prayers
in ancient languages,
ring bells into the night.

From the darkness of unknowing,
we enter a convenience store,
the house is sold, the stairs perhaps rebuilt—
we grow a winter garden,
for remembrance, deep-hued violets
on the heated windowsill—

where warmth meets cold
in a shared glass pane,
surprisingly sturdy violets
a breath away from death,
in this window looking out—or in,
from the darkness of unknowing.

Laura Foley is the author of six poetry collections, including, most recently, WTF (CW Books) and Night Ringing (Headmistress Press). Her poems have appeared in journals and magazines including Valparaiso Poetry Review, Inquiring Mind, Pulse Magazine, Poetry Nook, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Bellevue Literary Review; in the anthologies, Aesthetica Creative Writing, In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief, Ice Cream Poems, Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poets,  Not My President, an anthology of Dissent, and others.