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Peace Offerings
it’s early enough
windows still black
I see myself
when I flip the switch
so quiet I can hear
faint buzzing
of kitchen light
heat cranks on,
down the street
a dog barks
to be let inside
I can’t hear the door
but it’s quiet again
and I imagine her
at the foot of a man
outside the wind presses
its face to my kitchen
window, envious
of steaming coffee
and my gentle aloneness–
I can’t see him
but I know his scent,
feel his cheek on mine
I’m reminded of doves
how they’re never late,
not really,
and the odor
of olives rotting,
shriveled on a branch
half-forgotten, perhaps
in a box in my closet.
I stand at the window
so long my face
fades with pre-dawn
black, morphs
into a fence,
a small tulip tree
budding like a teen,
a garden plot waiting.
Becca Downs is a poet, freelance writer, and MFA candidate with the Mile-High MFA program at Regis University. Though currently residing in Denver, she lived in Indiana for 30 years and still considers herself a Hoosier at heart. Her work has previously been published in Glass Mountain Lit Mag, Ecletica, Jupiter Review, Heartland Society of Women Writers, genesis, and more. She enjoys hiking, exploring new places, and finding the best donuts wherever she travels.