Sufficient Emptiness, poetry by Marjorie Power

Before Before the woman next door took her last walk with the last man who’d break her heart.

Before this record heat and the shooting just south of here.

Before drought took the vineyard.

Before the hurricane and the waves that took the store.

Before the retiree across the street lost his sense of wonder, before he and the woman next door each bought a snow globe at a local secondhand shop.

His holds a trolley car.

Hers, a manger scene.

Before both these pleasant people kept mostly to their homes and each slipped into hearing the rest of us like this: Listen for the chuff of a steam engine – shiny, newly revived.

Try to catch the sounds of a fairy tale clockmaker’s shop.

Try for any reminder of Eden before the snake slithered in.

When this works, respond with a shake of the globe. Shake it again before the snow quits.

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