Coinquilina

by Sarah Brockhaus

When I talk about want I mean a seagull
taking flight against a dark night sky in Italy. I am
on my own, craving vicinity more than love, someone

to share the kitchen with. I pause to listen to the oration
of a man on the street. He lacks audience so I become.
I imagine a world where his words make sense, the way I hope

others make worlds out of me. Some nights I walk
like I am not a woman. On the news in Rome
tonight two girls drowned in a river and another

was thrown off a bridge into traffic by her boy
-friend, but it is alright because it was all
in Italian so I only understood every

tenth word, and they looked beautiful in the pictures
on screen, I wonder who chose the version
of them to show? Life is about translation, right? Maybe

death doesn’t have to be. I want to be a statue
lit up against the night. I want to be still. Sometimes
I sit up and wonder how many photos I am

a stranger in the background of. Do I look
pretty? Some things shouldn’t matter, but do anyway. The sound
of falling water is like this. I am home

against the night sky surrounded by gulls
and quiet lives in me right next to sound. I am in love
with the Italian word for roommate,

which sounds like small stones
falling from my mouth: a stranger
in the background of my home, a world

we make of each other, though
we are each lone bodies, paralleled. I know If I don’t turn
up tonight, she will search the water for me.

Sarah Brockhaus is an MFA student at Louisiana State University and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Salisbury University. She is a co-editor of The Shore Poetry. Her poems can be found in Sugar House Review, North American Review, Roanoke Review, Cider Press Review and elsewhere.