The TV

by Agnes Ezra Arabella


The absence sits on the window sill
It looks like the tree growing in front of it
limbs long and crooked
wretched clock
time passes like torn silk
She sits at the mirror
looking past things
Her TV blasts the news
confront the question
Covid -19
The vaccination
Trump is this
Trump is that
She stares at her own wrist
The veins are blue and purple
curved like road map
She is thin skinned
and her colors are Autumn
It is like a highway
traveling up a mountain
jagged blue and purple hills
and pine trees
Her heart will not stop
until she asks it to
Instead it beats
thump.. thump
Her heart will not stop
until she asks it to
She fumbles for
A clean box cutter
Her mother is cooking dinner
but she does not care
who is expecting her
A cut is like a poem
when it is carved deep into the arm
The TV beats
the vaccination
the vaccination
needles
the needles in the arm
Her heart will not stop
until she asks it to
instead it beats
Thump... Thump
She turns the TV off
to watch the tree in front of the window-
A stitch of green
The TV stops.


* * * * *

Agnes Ezra Arabella studied English Literature and Writing at Smith College with Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Gilbert. Went on to teach English in the South Bronx and Queens and became a quiet writer working on an upcoming poetry collection called Beach: Still Lives of the Ocean.