Public Republic

Samantha Seto

Photo: Erik Charlton

She whistles for her dogs.
To her kitchen to warm the kettle.
To her dresser
on the wall opposite her bed
opposite the window, beside the door
as it opened she felt its grain,
when she lifted & dropped the pineapple wallpaper,
when she traced her pillow’s lime-green palm
trees painted on the drawer fronts,
how the dogs whined & sighed.

Wool socks under the dresser,
she waits on the kettle’s low whistle.
She nods in the morning’s thick blue with
rising pedestrian dome of clouds.

Quiet but for the finches,
elm & fence-line, crosswalk & lawn
obey covenants.

Below the children on streets
taunt the doves in the evening by morning
tease the grass: rip with the toe, pull with the heel.
Boredom.
And the birds.
She settles back into her knitted-back chair.
The worn place frays, softly weeps.