July on South St. (AEAE)

By NICK MAIONE

 
Northampton, MA

I open the doors and windows and shut off the lights.
For a while I play tunes on the fiddle
shirtless in my dark house. I love doing this.
For the first time all day I am not at home.
For the first time since the last time
my body is the same size as my flesh.
The only home I have is finally mine
and there is a breeze.

The last colors leave the sky
and the neighborhood is completely dark.
I wish I was able to love more easily
but I am not a very generous person.
I don’t think my neighbors mind so much.
I don’t play too poorly, or for very long.

After a few redeeming non-melodic wisps
with the bow, which I cannot help doing,
I stop. Silence pours out of the empty house.
I hear most clearly in this instant what the world
will sound like without me in it.

Nick Maione‘s poems have appeared in jubilat, TriQuarterly, On The Sea Wall, Adirondack Review, and Peripheries, among others. He edits the online recitation journal Windfall Room and is the founder & artistic director of Orein Arts, a residency program at a monastery in Upstate New York. He holds an MFA in poetry from UMass Amherst and lives in the Northeast. Instagram: @nmaione_