Into the Closet
by Sara Backer
You open that closet door again although
you know it’s not a good idea.
Image by Corey Purcell
Bits of desiccated warblers, beak and feathers
powder at your touch, your father still playing the banjo
out of tune oblivious to loose strings, and the papaya
that wouldn’t ripen for months now brown mush over all
your birth certificate and pasting together pages
of books you thought might improve you.
You want to sell this closet to the highest bidder,
sell the rotten books and your frustration and stray sequins
that only make a good shimmer on the entire slinky dress
and only from far away, the point of entrance where paparazzi
shoot wildly and ask who you are afterward. You are someone
trying to sell your own father with dead birds.
That isn’t enough to keep the cameras
coming. So you move a thousand miles away
to a smaller apartment with larger windows
where you don’t see grandstanding peonies
(continued)
but a harsh slope of juniper and scree, and this closet
is a walk-in with the space you long coveted.
Giddy, future-drunk, you open this new closet door
and there is your father with his damn banjo
and slimy seeds of papaya melded to shelves,
and a small claw of a warbler lodged between your teeth.
About the Author:
Sara Backer’s first book of poetry, Such Luck (Flowstone Press 2019) follows two poetry chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt (dancing girl press) and Bicycle Lotus (Left Fork). Her honors include a prize in the 2019 Plough Poetry Prize Competition, nine Pushcart nominations, and fellowships from the Norton Island and Djerassi resident artist programs. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Art and reads for The Maine Review. Recent and forthcoming publications include The Pedestal Magazine, Crannog, Tar River Poetry, DMQ Review, Slant, and Kenyon Review. Follow her on Twitter @BackerSara
About Weekly Flash Prose and Poetry:
CutBank Online features one work of flash prose or prose poetry every Friday. Submissions are free and open year-round. Send us your best work of 750 words or less at https://cutbank.submittable.com/submit.