The Bedroom at Arles (1888) the pain inside feels like sadness I told Mrs. Hall & she sent me to the nurse Mrs. Jennings who said I could lie on the grey vinyl couch until it passed I was learning to read that year & learning too how to avoid the daily labours of noun & verb grammar sentence syntax hourly drills of getting it right the couch faced the wall where hung on the left an eye chart with its sad hieroglyphs of failure but on the right was another room's secret portrait askew all yellows & reds & blues two windows two pillows two chairs the careening floor & staggering door a counter image of the school's ordered brick and parallel lines to lunch I was thinking sixth grader because the perspective was close but not perfect it was almost right almost a room I could live in back in class they were perfecting the period the comma the capital letter I was turning on the verge of another sentence slipping on the vertiginous floor of the room in the wall where I had never gone it was telling me a story getting it right wasn't the point I would lie there long minutes listening to my insides turn & surge not getting any better & not wishing to Matthew M. Cariello Matthew M. Cariello's poetry, A Boat That Can Carry Two (2011) and Talk (2019) were both published by Bordighera Press. His stories, poems and reviews have been published in Voices in Italian Americana, Poet Lore, Ovunque Siamo, Evening Street Review, Modern Haiku, The Long Story, Indiana Review, Iron Horse Review, and The Journal. He is currently a senior lecturer in the English department at OSU in Columbus.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
The Ekphrastic Review
COOKIES/PRIVACY
This site uses cookies. Continuing here means you consent. Thank you. Join us: Facebook and Bluesky
February 2025
|