MK Cobb
Where We Are
I was asleep when you died. Rest rest you always said. So I did – we rested together. I
slept for nine months. The phone rang. I visited my sister in Chicago. It was my
brother-in-law’s birthday. My ears were alert to the crinkling of paper while he
unwrapped gifts at the Milwaukee Ave. Mexican restaurant, but my eyes remained
focused on the empty table under the horchata fountain. The sweet cinnamon drink
bubbled while I ate my enchilada de pollo con mole, while my nephew drooled on my
collarbone, while a whole family from Guadalajara walked the twelve blocks of
Milwaukee. They strolled through the Puerto Rican neighborhood to the Polish
neighborhood to the table next to us – laughing and clapping as they celebrated the first
communion of their last daughter. We decided to leave. It was time for me to catch my
flight to the hermit kingdom. We pushed open the heavy red curtain that kept the draft
outside, but before it collapsed back, I turned around, and sat at the table under the
horchata fountain. With every swallow of the milky drink, I could feel you, your hand on
the back of my neck, brushing my hair away until you reached skin. I could feel how
light you were, even as your clotted blood dragged each cell to its resting place.
M.K. Cobb is earning her MFA in poetry at the University of New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Sugar Mule and InDigest, and
are forthcoming from Sun’s Skeleton.
Return to May 2013 Edition
I was asleep when you died. Rest rest you always said. So I did – we rested together. I
slept for nine months. The phone rang. I visited my sister in Chicago. It was my
brother-in-law’s birthday. My ears were alert to the crinkling of paper while he
unwrapped gifts at the Milwaukee Ave. Mexican restaurant, but my eyes remained
focused on the empty table under the horchata fountain. The sweet cinnamon drink
bubbled while I ate my enchilada de pollo con mole, while my nephew drooled on my
collarbone, while a whole family from Guadalajara walked the twelve blocks of
Milwaukee. They strolled through the Puerto Rican neighborhood to the Polish
neighborhood to the table next to us – laughing and clapping as they celebrated the first
communion of their last daughter. We decided to leave. It was time for me to catch my
flight to the hermit kingdom. We pushed open the heavy red curtain that kept the draft
outside, but before it collapsed back, I turned around, and sat at the table under the
horchata fountain. With every swallow of the milky drink, I could feel you, your hand on
the back of my neck, brushing my hair away until you reached skin. I could feel how
light you were, even as your clotted blood dragged each cell to its resting place.
M.K. Cobb is earning her MFA in poetry at the University of New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Sugar Mule and InDigest, and
are forthcoming from Sun’s Skeleton.
Return to May 2013 Edition