Because nature abhors a vacuum,  

 

Benjamin secures his machine in the linen

closet, wedges it into the corner, permits it due dormancy

among the cedar chips.  He has no wife, now, to discuss philosophy

with, to pronounce the true meaning of phrases such as this: nature abhors a vacuum.                                                           

He winks

at each mirror he passes, something about good luck, how he always knew that

to produce a storm of trousers, a tower of books will please the gods. 

On his desk (newly installed in the hall for that full look) remain his blueprints

 

the renovation of Eagle Villa, where he and the wife

were to retire at basement prices, his commitment

to the facility, being what it was, to induce

 

the purging of space, spill over,

conquer.  Laurels for every fence, and for every fence

laurels.  The wife thought it redundant,

he would add, repetitive.  And finding him

 

void, filled her garden

help’s pockets with her hands still banded

with ring, fled to a state with skies like eggs

 

ready to crack, sun spreading its yolk across

their shell-colored bodies, now separating.

 

 

 

 

Reading My Mother’s Words On The Path To My Cabin

 

 

“And then the chimney

came down and the house

was thrown into the trash.”

 

There is no introduction,

this card speaks

like an overturned Bible. 

 

And I know I am missing

something, so I slow

            down, churn the passage

 

like cream.  Let memory

uncoil her flaxen

tresses until I see

 

the house built fresh

from ginger cookies,

            a chimney caving

 

weeks after Christmas.

And still, my brother’s

            sums of the right

 

triangle, the roof

that failed us

            in everything but theory—

 

lie flat on the notepad

by Mother’s phone.

            But the house

 

it stood like any ranch

in January, a horizontal

            catching snow

 

to stucco until time

(that little bastard)

            could not wait

 

any longer, slid himself

from below, his birth

the quick choke.

 

 

 

To Draw, To Smoke       

For Rotterdam Post WWII

 

After a season of war,

he drew with charcoal. 

Fire shooting from his fingers,

first his country colors.

Regal orange, like the House

of Orange and blue, deep

as Delft canals.  Pastels

pilfered from the art

academy. 

 

                  A lone chariot

appearing across the page

over, over, the outline

smudged.

 

Flame cradled the wheels, held them within

boundary, while the stallion, spooked, bucked.

Its mane, a whirl.  The repetition of what burns.  

 

Blauw.  Oranje. 

 

 

And he could not release

that cart from memory, the loose

braid of corpses, pigments

 

in his palette he would toss.

No more scarlet, or dirt

brown.  Just scavenged stubs,

 

orange and blue like some

plant in a smoldering city

its flower, paradise.

 

 

 

Natasha Kochicheril Moni resides in the Puget Sound area, where she writes poetry and reviews, and is the editor-in-chief for Crab Creek Review.  Her work regularly appears in journals including Verse, Rattle, Poetry Southeast, and Fourteen Hills.