Sylvie of the Stone Stoop
Published in Intermission, November 2018
poetry
​
I talk with Sylvie of the stone stoop
as her hand digs
around in the Cheetos bag for crumbs
and her bare feet swaddled in socks

made entirely of dirt
trace circles in the pea rocks.
The humidity is already buzzing
every insect in the county

on a breezeless breathless day
so I speak up
knowing her momma
is listening on the other side

of the screen door.
Sylvie builds mountains of pea rocks
surrounding a crater where her
castle grows formidable and queens

are kings and her queen commands
armies of lionesses
who stalk the perimeter of the realm
so quietly

not even a goddess could hear.
Sylvie’s cousin from St. Louie
mounts an attack
to break all of the beautiful things

in the kingdom
and is then banished to the weeds
by the dislodged drain pipe
where he will be eaten later

by rats.
After we have named everything
in the grocery bags I brought
and the afternoon is just beginning

to wring out
the morning
we stand to do the goodbye dance
and I promise to come inside next time.

My voice slides off the ripped screen door.
On my way down
the gravel road I turn back
to claim my forgotten messenger bag.

Picking my way through
the weeds by the drain pipe
I round the corner as
Sylvie questions,

“Momma, why don’t we like her again?”
Sylvie’s momma sighs
drags deep and long
on her Pall Mall

then exhales,
“Damn it, Sylvie.
She ain’t Jesus people.”
I cannot get

her words in my ears
and I am not certain
I can stand
​to hold these lonely things.