One Day by James B. Nicola

The subtle aggregation of the years
is brought to light as sudden as the day
the couple arrives. Unnecessary things amassed
like popcorn kernels sitting on a flame:
occasionally, then regularly, and then
a steamy, thrilling bursting to a climax
just short of an explosion, the pot overbrimmed
right before the flame went off. Among which they find:

Paperweights and porcelains.
Kitchen gizmos, their use a mystery;
     refrigerator coated in quilts of magnets.
Figurines of elephants, giraffes,
     pink pigs and piglets, orange orangutans.
Gold-lettered cups and over-painted eggs.
Mementos of excursions unrecalled.
Walls frame to frame and shelf on spilling shelf,
     all corners hutched by corner hutches, snug.
Ceilings ribanded and dressed
     in hooks and pegboards, unrelieved reliefs.
No room but room she’d make—she always
     managed somehow for beloved things.

She could have eaten better, but the change,
as I said, was subtle, as her things took over.
Now she lies in a fetal fervor on the floor
lower than her credenzas, full of things
unknown surrounded by the known, which have visibly
fallen like plastic hailstones around her frame;
they’ll never melt, and so must be removed.
She looks like a gardener in love with flowers,
who decided to take a nap one day in spring
in a flowerbed, never to wake up.

The wife hangs up the phone to silence its tone.
The husband closes a window. There must have been
a wind, he says as he starts to move the things
nearest his grandmother—or will, one day.

*****

James B. Nicola was published several times in mgversion2>datura—which is proudly featured on the acknowledgments page of his second, third, fourth, and fifth full-length poetry collections, and will be again in his sixth. Born: Worcester, Mass. Lives: New York City. sites.google.com/site/jamesbnicola.