Elegy After a Disturbance
Zachariah Claypole White
After Richard Pasquarelli’s Disturbance No. 2
Enough now. Let the open drawer be
just itself, gray as any summer
in a grandmother’s garden.
You might notice its displacement
rendered in shadow, see the handle
as an oxygen tank’s edge,
or the rim of glasses left
on a kitchen’s salted floor.
It is neither. It is
not the cupboard that, manic
from his own whiskey-ed light,
S— threw open to bait
his mother’s fear. It is not
your hesitance to use
his name. If you could empty
the drawer there would be
only wall and chickweed.
No wheelchair or ocean wave,
no one-handed man hiding
vodka behind the toilet. No small cruelties
to spread in the corner shop.
The Polaroids would be white
as a bedroom door, the music
something simple, unremarkable
as your mother
answering the phone,
oh God she said, oh God.