Shaming – Kimberly Prijatel

Shaming

Sharon hopes to sleep in the lake
behind the house where it was taken years ago,
not by the amoebas in the puddles or the rain in the wind she keeps
thinking she’ll turn back
the almanac tide she brought, the salt
She stuck under the yellowing nail

Imagine the lover who never
came around the side for you, the different kinds of birds you waited for and
never saw. Imagine the arsonist’s
homeland is the orchard
full of its rabbling humiliations

the almanac peels and you ask it why
it never comes,

the fog thick enough to cover us.