A Short Inventory of Small Ruins
J.H. DAVIS
1. Flood Season
The dog refuses to come in.
Rain has been falling
for four days straight now.
From the kitchen window
she looks holy—
half shadow and memory—
nose pressed to the fence post.
My father carved initials there
but no one remembers.
Inside I fold towels
we’ll never use.
You ask me if I’m happy
and I nod.
It’s easier than explaining
how some water
doesn’t want to be dried.
2. A History of Dust
We lived in a rental
with a slanted porch
and bees in the attic.
You kept sweeping
the corners of our bedroom
even when nothing ever
gathered there but light.
I watched you brush
a dead wasp from the sill.
You said Everything leaves something behind.
I didn’t know you meant yourself.
Now I clean compulsively
just to see what won’t come off.
3. The Light in the Shed
A bulb swings in the garden shed.
You open the door to moths
thrown at the walls like bad news.
I want to tell you I almost fixed
the latch last week.
Instead I say nothing
and watch your outline reach
the old rake
the handle cracked where
someone hit it
years before either of us
knew how to break quietly.
4. Subtractions
We don’t speak of it
but the pear tree dropped fruit
early this year.
Softer things give up sooner.
You fed me one
after cutting a bruised half
into clean sixths.
I couldn’t taste anything
but the gesture.
Later I found a pit
in my coat pocket and thought
this is how you teach someone
you’re leaving—
by vanishing in pieces
they mistake for gifts.
5. The Quiet Room
In the hospital lobby
a boy arranges jigsaw pieces
by color not shape.
His mother reads beside him
and sleeps when he does.
There is no clock.
A nurse passes through
with my name on her clipboard.
I almost ask her
what you said
before the morphine took it.
Instead I watch the boy
turn a corner piece
until it fits.
He never looks up.
He knows the sky comes last.
J.H. DAVIS is a writer living in Los Angeles, CA. He is previously published in Laurel Review, Hawai`i Pacific Review, Blackheart Magazine, and Cape Cod Poetry Review. He currently splits his time between California and Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.
