It Is Time
It was last month or maybe last week, she said,
when the floor gave way beneath her feet.
Her life, she told me, was like an old house,
gables of mold and rot, windows cracked,
unmoored from their panes, rattling with
the wind, the foundation listing, built, as it was,
on sand or, given the smell, a landfill.
It is time, she said, for a fire.
when the floor gave way beneath her feet.
Her life, she told me, was like an old house,
gables of mold and rot, windows cracked,
unmoored from their panes, rattling with
the wind, the foundation listing, built, as it was,
on sand or, given the smell, a landfill.
It is time, she said, for a fire.
Benjamin D. Carson lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts. His creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in many literary publications, including Cactus Heart, October Hill Magazine, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Yellow Medicine Review, and New Plains Review. His chapbook We Give Birth to Light: Poems was published by Finishing Line Press in June 2021.