by Carly Sachs

Wood floors and built-in bookshelves
were our non-negotiables,
gift of trees, like Bacchus and Philomena,
death will always make life.

The floor holds the things we own:
Calico and stereo, a library.
Words we knew before we knew
each other.

The chair, Grandma’s. The chair, green
where lions roar wooden grief,
curled feet and ears where
patterns are not patterns.

The record player spins but music
is nightfall, a tabby’s pink, pink paws
and mapped markings,
the area rug is a mandala

that does not know it is.
Metal flowers on the chandelier.
We make what we cannot keep.

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Carly Sachs is the author of The Steam Sequence and the editor of the anthology The Why and Later, a collection of poems about rape and assault. Her poems and stories have been included in The Best American Poetry Series and read on NPR’s Selected Shorts. She is a writer, yoga teacher and lactation consultant based in Lexington, Kentucky.