Indigo
Hour
Cheryl Snell
Sunday night, dusk.
The bed tattooed
with comics, deflated
bag of chips by the lamp.
I pull the radio onto my lap
like a child. The dial stutters
with oldies, three chords
summoning up people I carry
around in my head.
There’s no climbing out
of blue this deep. I run my palms
along edges of the headboard
as if a boundary can prove
the past is not present here.
Across town, a light switches on
in my sister’s kitchen. Notes
from her radio collide with lyrics
that travel more slowly now.
The words insist we are fine
where we are, but the voice
breaks between spikes of static.
It reaches toward me, warm as fingers.
