» Poetry

Levitations

My father dies in the morning

& a candy jar

 

in the middle of the house

wants also to be empty

 

objects in our living room

float like hot flies,

blue couches clutch the ceiling

& the coffee table whispers into the wall

 

The people, the fallen people,

the loved ones, my loved ones

sitting in the patio

we still laugh at the joke

about the giraffe.

 

We may cry in our fluorescent rooms,

when no one is looking.

 

We may be strong, we may, we may

but first we will tear our own

skin from our own skin

first can we go find

the other side where he went

find that place is not empty too.

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Nicholas Reiner

Nicholas Reiner is a Latino poet, sports writer, and chess expert from Southern California. His work appears or is forthcoming in Spillway, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, B O D Y, and Connotation Press. He holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of California, Irvine, where he completed an MFA. He lives in Santa Monica, California, with his wife.