Subletting

By Katharine Benson

Unattended in an empty apartment
Anxiety lights like a candle
Pools and spills over the edge of the platter,
Into closets, milk boxes, a sandal.
I used to wake up not remembering the way the spatter
Of rain had fallen in
That delicate city
So elegant the night before,
Used to let one person,
One by one,
Raze the night
And wake up numb to the rainfall.
(Churning out its trundles of ink-black streets)
As if their stature could collapse the intricate network
Of streets and side streets
Inevitably, out of habit, without fail,
The next afternoon I will trail.
In the same vessel
I decided to leave again and the second time
Tastes bitter and I almost forgot
My stretched out life
On an iron rack,
In the back of the closet not facing the window