ENUMERATE

Window

By ADAM GIANFORCARO  |  28 FEB 2023

(Please click on the images and use the zoom function to read the poem. A transcript is available in the ALT text.)

The image shows two blocks of black text on a white background, framed by lines that resemble a window with two glass panes. On the upper pane, the text reads: "It starts just before dusk: golden hour spritzed with Callery pear trees. Which is to say, the odor of aftermath. After, of course, but beforehand too. Spring’s blossoms of semen-scented flowers falling like snow around two backlit silhouettes. There’s a barn just beyond the hill there, and when the two figures find themselves close enough to slide inside, they sit, kneel, hover above the soft shadows of tools and crossbeams. Muffled sighs sift through the dust. Soon enough, night nears. Nearer still, the men open back up the barn doors. White petals dance on the breeze. But the men don’t dance. They barely look at each other as they walk back to their pick-up trucks." On the lower pane, the text reads: "In two kitchens across town: two wives. They search their spice cabinets to better season the meals they’re preparing. Each, as if connected in thought, opens their respective windows facing their respective yards, thinking it’s the smell of meat making them sick. Its thawing. Its raw rot. A small breeze ventures inside their homes. The stench from outside, of Callery pear trees and the mushroom farms to the north. All the hints the earth provides its people. If only they could distinguish the undertones in its rotten, fresh-air breath."

The image shows four sentences of black text on a white background, framed by lines that resemble a window with two glass panes. On the upper pane, the two sentences are: "The odor of aftermath. Muffled sighs." On the lower pane, the two sentences read: "The smell of meat. Its thawing." A trail of the word "ants" is arranged in haphazard clusters below the lower pane like a colony of insects.

Adam Gianforcaro is the author of Every Living Day (Thirty West Publishing House, 2023). His poems can be found in Palette Poetry, RHINO, Third Coast, Northwest Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Delaware.

RELATED ARTICLES

ENUMERATE

Anomalies

By DASIA SHARAE MOORE

The comprehensive account of you and me is just over five pages long.

ENUMERATE

Toilets: A Journey

By ANU KANDIKUPPA

A toilet is a place, too, like a seaside resort or a centuries-old city is a place. A visit to a toilet bears recounting, too.

ENUMERATE

Notes on Blackouts

By NAIHOBE GONZALEZ

I look out the window at our once-bustling city that is now stuck in a perpetual state of Sunday. It’s only been six months since our microwave died, but we’ve both aged so much more in that time span.
“It’s not safe,” I say.