One
Leah Falk
Still I crave aloneness,
——————ping of the pistachio I hull
———against a filling bowl,
tone of myself upon the wall
——————of emptiness. If I were always
———alone like this—the twin lungs of each shell
separate and fall,
——————Icarus wings—I’d have to
———stand outside my life,
without. It’s getting lonely outside,
——————my daughter said of the crowding
———dusk, from inside the diner
where we scraped up
——————pie and ice cream. Dusk,
———the settling of sighing tissue
artificially inflated, now
——————unhooked from its machine.
———Whatever I must bite open
I decide is mine to eat,
——————plus a few more besides.
———I disappear into my counting,
ping, alone in my routine.
——————In it I hear the lost song
———of myself, or at least its large-
language simulation, its tinnitus.
——————Its melody recalls the days
———my wrists ached with the work
of holding. My body first gave,
——————then absorbed the world,
———its oneness from then on
never only one: here
——————divided by infinity, there by
———desire multiplied.
Leah Falk is the author of the poetry collections To Look After and Use and Other Customs and Practices. Her work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Electric Literature, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere, and has received support from The Peleh Fund, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and the Yiddish Book Center. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughters.
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