in parentheses

Hugh Findlay reads and writes a lot, publishes sometimes, dabbles in photography, likes beer and makes a pretty good gumbo. His work has been published both in print and online and several magazines and anthologies. He is in the third trimester of his life and keeps passing up open windows.

Artwork by Edward Michael Supranowicz

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Aylesford Time

The open window breathes
through my room to click
open my room’s door and
run into the empty hall.
They work together here on Aylesford time
and they all go one way,
one way only,
never disturbing the flow of peace
winding river-like down the street.
Even old tree branches suspend themselves
in the direction of cars facing,
pointing along to the bottom,
the end of Aylesford hill;
where in Aylesford time
a dog yelps and is quickly muffled
for its voice travels the wrong way;
and water flows down always
and sunshine glances South forever.
The pigeons here
skip from roof to roof.
They know Aylesford air —
they guard it quietly,
keeping sentry,
worrying squirrels
and filling the skyline with all
Aylesford thoughts.
And working together
they breathe a current through
my window
to pass clean through me,
intoxicating, insulating,
as we click open my room’s door
and run into the empty hall.

I Don’t Know

She takes when she gives.
Friendship does that, does a change.

Sometimes there is a reckoning
with one’s self, and then with the world.

Sometimes all the cards are shown,
pretended not to be read.

In the night, her shadowed face
sleeps in sync with my arm on her waist,

with her head on my pillow,
the streetlight from my window

giving and taking something, something
I cannot see, and we breathe together.

One Time

The not-too-faraway train
horns out its linear existence
and barges through the hot night air
like a strong thought scraping clean
a cluttered mind.
And all things become relative
to each other, and exact among themselves:
the cars on the parkway,
the grass on the lawn,
the baby in her crib.
Again the horn descends,
louder and more self-assured,
and splinters in its wake
the whole house,
squeezing through cracks in glass,
pouring in under the eaves;
as a hot breeze follows
rudely then
volleying from window to chair
to floor to kitchen cabinet
and finally out the back door,
taking with it
its cloak of declaration.
So silently, the house settles.
The cars, stopped at the light, grumble.
The grass slowly calms and returns
to its business of growing.
And the baby cries,
and she cries and cries.

Win

Wind
o
Wind o
O wind o
Win do
Windo
Windowindowind
Oh
Window

pane.

Thinking of You

Though you have been gone
for two weeks now,
and will be for two more,

I was thinking…
what a crying shame it would be
if I were to [gasp] suddenly DIE.

How lonely!
How full of regret!
How sad you would feel!

Well I sure hope
I don’t die.
I really, truly do.

I even promise
not to jump out the window
until you come home.

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