Interior Access, by Maria Martin

Interior Access, by Linda Fantuzzo (USA) 2019

Interior Access
​
I have come here in the afternoon to the courtyard of my enemy. Blackberries grow abandoned around the base of a central tree. Only the birds and the sun are here with me. The ladder propped against the wall leads the way out but not in. My enemy could be anywhere by now. Probably claiming what’s mine is his or pretending to know everything. This isn’t the first time my enemy’s gone missing. Once I was learning to drive. Trees flew past, and houses, and towns. I had a feeling he was nowhere to be found. However silent he moves, I move also. However the birds sing to him, I hear upon waking. I do not ask what he needs from me. I come after him, knowing. 

Maria Martin

Maria Martin is the 2nd Place Winner of Narrative's 2017 30 Below Contest. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in jubilat, cream city review, The Journal and elsewhere.  She serves as Vice-President for the Poetry Society of South Carolina.