ROWAN TATE
Gara de Nord
A woman with two pink plastic bags
stills in the middle of the platform,
as if time briefly forgot
to carry her forward.
The crowd
spills around her
like water around a stone.
One of the bags tears slightly,
stretched too thin.
She shifts her weight
like something small inside her
made a different decision.
I watch the next train arrive
and think about missing it
on purpose.
Before the World Arrives When Light Learns the Floorplan
Fog slips its milk
through the hinge of morning—
that narrow hour
when nothing has quite begun.
Streetlights still lit,
unnecessary, left propped up
like hands raised
after the question’s been answered.
The kitchen kettle hisses
its small argument. This hinge of quiet:
bread thawing
on the counter, day pools,
the butter softens.
The knives rest cold in their drawer.
I sip what’s warm
and wait to be opened.
Rowan Tate is a Romanian creative and curator of beauty. Her writing appears in the Stinging Fly, the Shore, Josephine Quarterly, and Meniscus Literary Journal, among others. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.
It's not easy getting a book or pamphlet accepted for review these days. So in addition to the regular review section, the One Poem Review feature will allow more poets' to reach a wider audience - one poem featured from a new book/pamphlet along with a cover JPG and a link to the publisher's website. Contact the editor if you have released a book/pamphlet in the last twelve months or expect to have one published. Details here
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