On Absence

Because we lived under the smithy of louder
habits, of sisters with no iron left in their quick

wet blood, we saw the strike-spark rotate once
reflected in our leaded pane. All along, we suspected

fire was just a movie, flame a way to keep the eyes
busy in the almost dark. Because it went on

this way for a while, the sisters seeping speedily
out of their skin onto the slab floor over

and over, our ceiling felt like a funeral played
on repeat, our sitting always shiva, always waiting

for the next clang to ring in the next loss. Because
we knew we were already half underground,

from the waist down we were in a basement,
our eyes just enough above ground to see the air

below the first floor, we would talk like we were
sitting up in our graves, we would talk like people

standing in line to fill out their wills. All of this
is to say, when the sisters finally stopped dying

and were actually dead and the anvil shut its hardened
mouth to the world below, we sent our condolences

up in a little basket. No one sent it back empty. Years
later, we could see it run over in the street.

John A. Nieves has work forthcoming or recently published in journals such as The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Colorado Review, The Massachusetts Review and North American Review. His first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. Nieves is an Associate Professor of English at Salisbury University and an editor of The Shore. He received an MA from the University of South Florida and a PhD from the University of Missouri.