Unearthing Another Temple
This is long, long after you,
though once it was your kitchen.
Some of your cutlery is still in the
drawers, artifacts that will help us
learn how you lived, elucidate
your day to day routines.
Small animals skitter along the
warpings of your floorboards, beneath
the counter with its matted heap of
leaf litter; tendrils of green sprouts
spiking through the detritus, the tiny
lobes of their heads bowing.
Your cupboard doors lie open or
unhinged, spilling soil, strung with the
kinking yarn of vines and stratified foliage.
The windows are gone and sighing
with open air, though a half-buried
coffee cup – your favourite – rises
from the dirt on a collapsing sill,
tilting out to the forest canopy,
mouthing an expressive O. The corner
of the room has been pried open by the
rippling muscle of a tree root, having
wormed its way in from the ceiling,
where there is now a hole, allowing the sun
(which in your time could only shaft inside
on select mornings over the winter) to freely
explore the uneven ground, a slow sweep of
warmth that fingers whatever it chooses,
peeking in from its belly on the roof
like a god.
~ Mark Lavorato
Mark Lavorato is a Canadian author and who has just finished his second novel. His first, Veracity, was published by Rain Publishing in 2007. His short fiction has been published in Zeugma, Stranger Box, and Miss Saphira’s, and his poetry by Poetry Canada Magazine, Leaf Press, Inscribed, Big Pond Rumours, WTF Magazine, Cerebration, Armada Quarterly, White Chimney, Miss Saphira’s, The Orange Room Review, MÖBIUS, Raven Poetry, Interpreter’s House, The Southernmost Review an international anthology by The BluePrintReview, and Ascent Magazine, where he won first place in their premier print edition contest.
Leave a Reply