Madmen Know Nothing
by Cari Moll
I apologize for stapling the shades shut.
I couldn’t bear the thought
of fire in the room we painted
last January.
Rather, I watched six months pass in the darkness.
I have kept you awake in the closet.
The sweaters of your childhood winters.
Shirts of a man I never met.
I still look at the letters with no return address.
I still read through the notebooks,
where you signed your name
in your lover’s spit.
A ghost could never do that.
But a ghost would never come back.
I have lost nothing but my grasp
on the divide between shadow and flame.
The rest is stored under the floorboards.
It pounds on the cherry wood
begging to be released
so it all may pass through the gates.
I couldn’t bear the thought
of fire in the room we painted
last January.
Rather, I watched six months pass in the darkness.
I have kept you awake in the closet.
The sweaters of your childhood winters.
Shirts of a man I never met.
I still look at the letters with no return address.
I still read through the notebooks,
where you signed your name
in your lover’s spit.
A ghost could never do that.
But a ghost would never come back.
I have lost nothing but my grasp
on the divide between shadow and flame.
The rest is stored under the floorboards.
It pounds on the cherry wood
begging to be released
so it all may pass through the gates.
Cari Moll is a poet and punk rock enthusiast from New England. They published their first chapbook titled Late Night Train Lights under their previous name with Ibbetson Street Press, and have since featured work with publications such as Dream Noir, Cardinal Sins Journal, and Awakened Voices.