Poetry: Selections from Leah Mueller

Drawers of You

Etched cocktail glasses

with your father’s initials

crouch in the cupboard

 

with our two

yellow coffee cups,

untouched since May.

 

Forks and knives lie

like vanquished soldiers:

side by side, inert.

 

Once you cut

your meal in tiny pieces

so you could swallow,

throat contracting with rebellion.

 

It took two hours

to finish a meal: then

you looked up, beaming

after the last mouthful.

 

I wash each utensil

with care, erasing

the final remnants of you:

 

yet somewhere,

deep inside the cupboard,

that imprint remains:

 

the stubborn portion

your cancer didn’t eat first.

Ghoul’s Demise

And so your wan face peers at last:

obituary in the hometown paper.

Your daughter calls you a hero:

she can’t believe you’re gone.

 

The man who drove you to the bus station

after you littered my apartment

with shards of broken glassware

warned you that musicians die young.

 

He became famous: threw himself

into the river ten years later.

You did not achieve fame:

settled into a life of unionized plumbing,

 

made a good salary, married a woman

who could securely cap your rage

and store it on the kitchen counter like flour.

 

The obituary mentioned your chef skills.

I remember you made good omelets,

worked in upscale restaurants,

drank in corners of the kitchen.

 

So many nights sneaking into our apartments

in Chicago, Iowa City, New Orleans, and Madison,

after stealing a few hours with friends,

 

but you always heard me: lunged from behind

closet doors, demanded to know who I was fucking.

 

Always, the shock of breakage:

stereos, windows, half-empty plates.

 

You pissed on me in the bathroom and laughed,

kicked me with the toes of your boots,

so hard that bruises covered my shins.

 

Bruises were normal. I grew up with them:

spent my time dodging projectiles,

beaten with belts, told to kill myself.

 

I knew what love looked like:

faces contorted but later contrite.

You, apologizing again. Your hands

on my body, knowing I never refuse.

 

Perhaps the lotus will cure us

this time, if eaten in fast, guilty clumps,

 

like forbidden chocolate. Perhaps

I can dive low enough to repair

everything that lies shattered on the bottom.

Leah Mueller is the author of ten prose and poetry books. Her latest book, Land of Eternal Thirst was released in 2021. Leah’s work appears in Rattle, Midway Journal, Citron Review, The Spectacle, Miracle Monocle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, etc.