The Irises

At attention
on the table, irises

hold tablets of sulphur
on their tongues. We’ve eaten

the bread out of the kitchen
and the eggs

have all been cracked, the little
bowls of their shells

filled with garbage.
Maybe it’s true, somewhere

there are still thunderstorms,
and maybe there will be

other summers for drowning.
No one hears me say

every wall in this house
is pimpled with tumors.

No one hears me say
I know the sky is not falling.

It is lowering itself slowly
down on top of us.

Abby Paige is a poet, playwright and performer whose poems have appeared in Hunger Mountain Review, MARGIE, and are forthcoming in Saranac Review. Her solo show, Piecework: When We Were French, toured this spring throughout Vermont, where she was born and raised. She now lives in Montreal, where she is a regular poetry reviewer for The Rover.