COMMITMENT
I’ve heard there are cultures that cover
…………………..reflective surfaces in the wake
of this kind of thing. Perhaps it was tempting
…………………..fate to go mirrorless above the sink,
or at least to take the old one (cheaply rococo) down
before I was ready to put the new one (spartan, stern) up.
In the interregnum of the self I sat an ersatz shiva.
I too had thought about it for years.
…………………..Decades, really. It’s funny
how we imagine ourselves boy or girl
most likely to, and then someone
…………………..else just goes and does it.
But you never go all limb-out and think
it’ll be your aunt, married, two kids.
Spring had been bragging
its imminent arrival that week;
…………………..I’d even flirted
with letting it in, had debated whether
to deny or grant the wind personhood
when I mistook its opening and closing
of my back balcony door for an intruder.
…………………..Does the wind not, like me,
…………………..I reasoned, change its mind
and pivot sometimes, to a worse direction,
…………………..seem to say things it doesn’t,
…………………..take on a particular sad tenor
…………………..in the winter gloaming, like
a wolf howling at nothing in particular?
At the spa, Saturday, we cycled through the water
like rainfall, evaporation, condensation—
steam room, hot tub, cold plunge, brushed metal
bottle tucked in the pocket of a white robe,
……………………….all the little droplets
……………………….that can be both inside
……………………….and outside of the body.
I thought you’d called from Copenhagen,
……………………….while my phone was locked
……………………….in the basement, no signal,
……………………….and I had to text , “Is every
thing okay.” But by then you were in Toronto already,
had flown back immediately when you heard, didn’t tell me
until you were on the right side of the Atlantic.
……………………….When the second call came through
we were on our way to a bar called Cold Room.
I was right; it was bad news. You might want
……………………….to sit down for this and then
it wasn’t my first, second, third, fourth, or even fifth
silent guess. I had tried, while you narrated,
……………………….to keep walking, but.
……………………….At the restaurant, later,
……………………….I drank two Laphroigs,
……………………….spooning in the rocks
……………………….myself, and thought about
the plans I’d made to buy a black suit—well, dark
grey, with faint checks—just to be prepared for the
……………………….next death. Tempting fate, again.
……………………….The next day a dark grey
street cat played hard-to-get with us,
rubbing against leafless bush branches,
traipsing through the thawing ice in a series
of strangers’ gardens. Death is like that, I thought—
……………………….slinking silent, then suddenly
……………………….wanting to be fed.
Alex Manley is a Montreal-based writer whose work has appeared in Maisonneuve Magazine, The Puritan, carte blanche, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day feature, among others, and whose debut poetry collection, We Are All Just Animals & Plants, was published by Metatron Press in 2016.
To view other content published in this issue, 16:2 “Fear”, please visit Vallum’s website.
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Vallum: Contemporary Poetry 