The city’s ready to burst
into flames tonight, all the whites
on the clothesline swept over

the wooden fence into the neighboring
yard. Everyone I love lives
four hours away, and I’m forced  

to make friends with dairy cows
who prefer grazing to seeing me
watching them at golden hour, unflinching. 

Rusted leaves fall from rustling
trees and I’m trying to learn the art
of letting go. The blustery breeze proves

the power of movement. But I am still,
in this room where only my own voice
echoes, and here are my hands,

ineffectual, shaking. This night is a shard
of glass. It is a dark, shut mouth
and I am stranded inside.

Despy Boutris is published or forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Colorado Review, The Adroit Journal, Prairie Schooner, Palette Poetry, Third Coast, Raleigh Review, Diode, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she teaches at the University of Houston and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast.