I consider weather
Rebecca Ruvinsky
to tell my love
we have rats in the attic. we,
as in, me and mine; he is
still hundreds of miles away, his smile
and the way he tilts his head when
considering a question only known to me
by way of crappy cameras and sometimes-stable
internet connections. i also didn't tell him, earlier,
about the smell of old blood on the air
that had us asking a stranger to peer up into the bones
of our home, him surgeon-like in describing the traps
he will set, how he will seal us off from the outside world
so there is nowhere to be but home. us, as in, us, but also
the rats. uncaught but anticipating the catch. the issue with
being so far away is that the mundane must be told
purposefully. hours unbidden fall away in the course
of conversation. days are only grand arcs, sweeping
away the scattered moments of the long process of living.
i don't mention all the stubbed toes, though i know
if he were here—the thought i always catch myself with—
he would ask if i was okay. i can't sum up my day without living it
again. i want mundanity, for my house to be my own, to sleep
without stuffing a towel under my door so i can ensure
i sleep alone. what does he need to know? what would
he want? if he knows i am constantly listening
for the scitter-scatter of paws on my ceiling, of what i now
know is there, then he is doubly-helpless as i: afraid
and unable to do anything about my fear. what is the worst
kind of problem? the ones you can't fix for the one you love
from hundreds of miles away. he doesn't know that it's raining
where i am right now, either, or how the weather feels
when i step outside and ask him: are you free?
Rebecca Ruvinsky is a student, poet, and emerging writer in Orlando, Florida. She has kept a streak of writing a poem every day since 2016, with work published or forthcoming in Wizards in Space, Prospectus Literary, Sylvia Magazine, Underland Arcana, The Remnant Archive, Poetry on the Move, and others. She can be found at @writeruvinsky.
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