Psalm Ambulista

by L. Noelle McLaughlin

Nobody went to work this week
The whole world has the flu
You soup me and save me and gatorade me
I have no choice but to rabbit you afterwards

I sift through the skivvies on the floor
We haven’t done laundry in 39 days
I step careful through the pile like a doe in daylight
There is an orchestra up the road and
If we could just get up and leave
The clouds would clear and we could hear it.

The heat is broken
So we have to keep the windows open
The pipes are busted and the water is leaded
Everyone in the building is thirsty.

January is a dry cough waiting to happen
And shall we march forth or forgo the whole calendar of it?
A dog whimpers in the flat across the street.
The trailer for the landscapers is higher than a UPS truck
It wobbles over the yellow speed bumps like a hospice patient out for a stroll.

The letter you left in my drawer didn’t contain any answers.
It’s the way it was folded, I picture you pressing each edge down
Smooth with your big fingers, you tuck the edges in like
Putting a little one to bed.
The orchestra of sky and the dark notes go whole

Evergreens absorb what they can
The small stone church on the corner always plays the same psalm –
Water falls and water roars.

The soprano who lifted the chamber skyward
Bedridden somewhere but her voice
Has never left the building,
It touches the tourists when they investigate the architecture,
Like three tracks layered into one,
They can’t tell where the calm is coming from.
The locals have learned not to fear it.

Her withered frame and white hair were her master deception
Something strong in her center
She took the spirit in and held it to her heart
On fire the entire time.

L. Noelle McLaughlin is a ghostwriter and fiction editor originally from the Bronx. She was the Hortus Arboretum and Botanical Gardens resident writer for 2020, and a finalist for a grant from The Speculative Literature Foundation. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in Carte Blanche, Alchemy Magazine, Sein und Werden, Gaia Literature, Wild Roof Journal, GAMBA zine, Thrice Fiction, The Screech Owl, Unlikely Stories, Advaitam Speaks Literary, The Stone Canoe Journal, Not Ghosts but Spirits, an anthology from Querencia Press, and Love in the Original Language, an anthology from Moonstone Press. lnoellemclaughlin.com