Small House Near Nowhere, Emily Hill

 

 

Friday, Kristin cuts vegetables into finer things,

searches the weekly chicken like a dead body.

The bones are boiling away for soup—

 

six o’clock and the house is Catholic for the day.

The walls are warm ochre, but Kristin shivers,

trying not to think of her parents’ home in Maryland.

 

She has not seen cherry blossoms in years, nor

heard the Potomac searching for its mouth to the Bay.

In town, David kills a phone call, walks to his used car—

 

he dislikes the ’89 Opel Kadett, red and misspelled.

Driving home slowly, he regards the West in winter,

misty, inviting, Ireland hiding itself within itself.

 

They finish dinner hungry, tired, holding hands.

Tomorrow they’ll take stones from the nearby ruins

trying to be locals in a place that isn’t theirs.