From the Bottom of the Stairs

Listen to Joshua Edwards reading this poem


Her voice is coming up like a slow show
tune made famous by its composer's death,

and he's a man dreaming of a play bathed
in lunar light, so cheating on her. The day

is very warm, and then: three telephone
calls saying: the child was bitten, the child

is allergic, the child has died, and they are
so sad that they will set the scene again

with a flower that could not hold the bees'
attention. And a monument fell to pieces

within them. The day gathered them
in its hull, blew a horn, which sounded like

echoed sobbing, and the notion to hold still
was in the air. And they held the air still within

them, as though a moment is something
that leaks from the lungs, and not some

thing that comes to whisper, as it passes
first closely, and then away.

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