The Room
by Peter
Mladinic
The
other’s feelings go out the window
or
lie like shoes in a box on a shelf
in
the closet.
I
sit on the bed’s edge,
I
take up the whole bed.
There’s
no chair for the other
or
for me
to
look in their eyes, see how they feel,
or
tell by how they sit,
with
their hands moving or still.
Out
the window treetops thick and green.
Were
it winter,
the
other and I could look out at a river,
bigger
than both of us.
I
care about how you feel,
I
say to the wallpaper’s western motif:
cowpokes
lasso
steers and gather round a fire.
Peter Mladinic’s fourth book of poems, Knives on a
Table, is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights
advocate, he lives in Hobbs, NM.
Bernice Holtzman’s
paintings and collages have
appeared in shows at various venues in Manhattan, including
the Back Fence in Greenwich Village, the Producer’s Club, the Black Door Gallery
on W. 26th St., and one other place she can’t remember, but it was in
a basement, and she was well received.
