"Alone" by Radka Thea Otipkova

Alone

For twenty seven coffee cups
you've been gone. The two pages (45, 46)
have been gaping into your pillow ever since
the season changed into the one that puts a stop
to most winged things, dragonflies
as well as the swallows we marveled at
from our blue cheap shit chairs.
You had the windows changed to make the house
hold its heat for me and it, lingeringly, does.
What can I say. I love to keep the fire going
now that the cold stays out. For eighteen
garlic cloves. At least.
For a tragedy of onions. It's all about baitfish now,
you'd say at the end of summer. There's a lot more
dead water, but you try. Try the last
steep drops in creek arms,
the bluff walls off the main lake.
Think of the unvoiced suffering of trout,
of lizards, daddy longlegs quietly lame.
Stop counting. Stop giving it a name.

Radka Thea Otipkova

RADKA THEA OTÍPKOVÁ studied English as a second language at the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic, where she also started her teaching career. Her work has appeared in B O D Y, The North, Tears in the Fence and other journals. Her collection was shortlisted in the 2016/17 Poetry Business International Book and Pamphlet Competition and her poem “Coup de Grâce” was shortlisted in the 2017 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition. In 2019 she won The Waltham Forest Poetry Competition. She has been nominated for a Pushcart and a Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.

Headshot: Frank Harris

Photo Credit: Staff