Paradise

When the telephone rang,

whether early morning or

mid-afternoon, she was the

one who answered, and took

care to sound exactly as

though she’d just woken from

napping. It colors the

sleeping child’s imagination.

I’ve said that time designs the

ornament that suits it, and

this has everything to do with

how a life gets organized for

love. Similarly, the stack of

papers disappeared from the

table before anyone could

reasonably have filed them,

but who would steal a stack of

blank forms printed on

recycled paper. But if activity

is irritation. Think of the tiny

bush bird. It isn’t coffee, it’s

tea. In the afternoon heat my

thoughts drift, I think of

friends far away, struggle to

focus on the movement of my

children away from, towards,

and upon me where I sit in a

green lawn chair, listening to

the screen door slam

upstairs.

Andy Stallings lives, teaches, and coaches cross country running at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. His first book of poems, To the Heart of the World, came out with Rescue Press in 2014, and other poems from Paradise can be found around the internet.

Paradise

Though only a few miles

further east, she thought of

herself as nearer to the sun.

Faulty logic is nothing like

faulty piping. The tower’s

steps, dark and cool. But why

should an eighth-grade

understanding of temperature

suffice, ergo language, ergo

empathy. The children

troubled the ducks, no matter

the children, never mind

the ducks. With water

in mind, with water at

heart, we set out walking

south and arrived at water.

The door stood open,

allowing warm air from the

deck to mix with cooled air

from the house in a sort of

floating estuary navigated by

bugs. Sudden noise was

usually a timer buzzing or

beeping, which someone

slapped shut or off.

Andy Stallings lives, teaches, and coaches cross country running at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. His first book of poems, To the Heart of the World, came out with Rescue Press in 2014, and other poems from Paradise can be found around the internet.

Paradise

She eats the slice of cake

slowly over three mornings,

stores it in the refrigerator, a

few bites each breakfast,

savors the lingering sense of

“getting away with it,”

frosting first and frosting last.

Between one city park and

another. Where there were

morning birds, we always

found rocks, always found

water, always found bushes

and trees. In the dignified

room, their behavior was

anything but. The curtains

separated light but didn’t

block its entrance. Nor ought

it, in his opinion at least. It

troubles the poinsettia in the

lobby. And any longer we

didn’t need to set our kitchen

up before we cooked, though

only as of late.

Andy Stallings lives, teaches, and coaches cross country running at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. His first book of poems, To the Heart of the World, came out with Rescue Press in 2014, and other poems from Paradise can be found around the internet.

Paradise

A downpour slips beneath the

lesser rain, colorfast and

anonymous. I hold the

freshest water in my cheeks,

as though to attract your

door to summer, let it swing

loose in its harness. My mood

won’t hold its decline after

dark, this is called affection.

Maybe a sister treads beneath

the canopy of your sleep. The

rainbow’s mark is faint as

waking, rails to clinch a

gradual rumination. Will

shallows rise to any air,

bumping repeatedly against

fields plowed and flooded

that reflect your flashing sails,

behind them a sheen they

don’t yet contradict.

Andy Stallings lives, teaches, and coaches cross country running at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. His first book of poems, To the Heart of the World, came out with Rescue Press in 2014, and other poems from Paradise can be found around the internet.

Paradise

The value of tolerance for

paradise varies depending on

the tolerance, the paradise.

That was a dusty road,

though freshly planted

with crops along each side.

The flat rock denotes childish

anticipation, the jewel-filled

rock is for flight. What do

you mean, diminished. How

one “navigates the blemishes”

of others is what makes one

human, and in this sense at

least, a human is a stylus.

Rhythm, however, floods

through meaning, mostly. A

real effort to see the sun has

not relieved the weight of

beauty even a little.

Andy Stallings lives, teaches, and coaches cross country running at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. His first book of poems, To the Heart of the World, came out with Rescue Press in 2014, and other poems from Paradise can be found around the internet.