Jill Mceldowney | If the Dead Were in the Room I Would Say

Jill Mceldowney is the author of the chapbook Airs Above Ground. (Finishing Line Press). She is an editor and co founder of Madhouse Press. Her previously published work can be found in journals such as Muzzle, Prairie Schooner, Vinyl, and other notable publications.

Jill Mceldowney on Twitter

Madhouse Press

Also by Jill Mceldowney: Airs Above Ground Alydar Keen Ice

Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry: November

January 2020

Jill Mceldowney

If the Dead Were in the Room I Would Say

I wake up still thinking you are alive — my body gets used to that fog as if you, as if the dead are nothing more than bones to the body. That pain is deep — I will go deeper. I stayed awake for months after you — waiting for your call — come back — people like you don’t just disappear. I would’ve waited forever in the solstice cold, up in the air, mountainside of disbelief if only to hear you say my name. Before you, I could not understand pain but I know it now and it sounds supernatural, like beams of light smashed across the small of my back. Sleep and never sleep again — where did you find yourself when you finally woke? Did it hurt — ? I mean is death anything like living? Does it remind you of home? I hope where you are is vast, real, Impossible — a better oblivion, more sky — I hope where you are is nothing like home.

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