January

Inside the diner, fluorescent lights
glare down on us,
their faulty buzzing audible
since the jukeboxes are fake.
The patched up vinyl booth
aches under every movement.

Before I can wonder
why it looks so familiar, you ask
if I’m going to get the pancakes again
because that’s what I did when we were nineteen.

Finger traces lines through spilled table salt
granules stick to skin
and I strain my eyes to see them:
countless little worlds on my fingertip.

On the Overpass

A man teaches his son
to pack snow tightly,
roll it the size of a baseball
and then, ammo lined up
on the overpass, wait.

The moment’s announced
by the rattle of rusted bridge frame,
a slight shake in the pavement.
The whistle goes and they both wind up.

Snow explodes on sheets of metal:
raw materials in steel exteriors
sprinting, wheel and smoke,
thousands of miles to a warmer coast.

Spring Air

It’s May in Boston in his boss’s apartment
which he’s renting this summer while he settles in and
there’s no furniture yet but the sun hits the hardwood
kind of nice which is what I think while we think
of more things to say. He won’t let me cook
but Christ, the real show of chivalry would be
giving me something to do with my hands.

He lets me open the wine. This is not the benign task
he thinks he’s delegating, because I live in a dorm room
and don’t choose my drinks by French region,
rather by twist-off cap or no twist-off cap
(the cork only slightly maimed when I’m through.)

I’m impressed by his age but in a few years I will think
so he was a fucking kid, too, and aren’t we all just kids
the whole damn time, this whole time
lucking into people and messing it up,
watching a breeze blow clean across an unfurnished bedroom
from wooden decks overlooking cramped back alleys,
gulping spring air when the wine runs out.

Maura Monaghan grew up in New York but lives in London. Her work has featured in HAD, dishsoap quarterly, and others. Find her on Instagram: @maura_monaghan

A version of ‘Spring Air’ appeared in Issue 9 of Heimat Review.