is missing. I pass through the rooms
like anyone else would who felt like they’d been here before:
hastily, looking for clues.
This room has your eyes and they are unblinking.
My father is in the corner
eating his own heart.
The next is a swimming pool
I don’t remember swimming across
but I am already dripping going through the next door,
my father in this room too, smearing blood
oranges on the walls with a putty knife.
The next room is all windows
and the orchard glows ominous and advancing.
Next, the stable.
Next, a perfect replica of my bedroom.
Next, a room with two doors and nothing in it.
The transient nature of the house means I must pick one,
because here, there is no going back. Only moving on.
This is a reprint of work originally published in Tossing and Turning.
Rachel Nolan holds a BA in poetry from Hampshire College, edits poetry manuscripts for Green Writers Press, and is managing editor for Millennial Pulp. Their past accomplishments include being a finalist in jubilat’s Make a Chapbook Competition in 2017, as well as being a finalist for Heavy Feather Review’s Zachary Doss Friends in Letters Memorial Fellowship in 2020. Rachel’s work is recently or forthcoming in Duende, HOOT, Beyond Words, Tilde, Trouvaille Review, and Second Chance Lit.
