Duplex

by Caki Wilkinson

At 6 months in
and half-unpacked,
the spare room fat
with boxes stacked
like bricks from some
demolished city, home

is where one day
Wynona vows
she’ll hang the hat
or route the cows
she doesn’t have
the width for here; as half

the time she’s pressed
to pay for cable,
what’s living large?
A sturdy table,
fewer ghosts—
at best, a dinner guest.


CAKI WILKINSON is the author of the poetry collection Circles Where the Head Should Be, which won the 2010 Vassar Miller Prize. Her second collection won the 2013 Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award and is forthcoming from Persea Books.