Duplex for My Future Self
After Jericho Brown
My husband, making coffee in the kitchen
or dead. Tell me, future self, so I can be ready.
If he’s dead, I need to be ready, so tell me.
In thirty years, will this house still be ours?
In forty years, will this house still be ours?
On the porch, I dare a glance behind me.
On the porch, I glance behind me again—
to my husband or my reflection?
My husband stars in my reflections:
the man on stage who shook his long hair back.
The man on stage shakes his long hair back—
my husband, an answer I don’t yet know.
My husband, the answer I don’t yet know:
Is he alive inside, making coffee?
or dead. Tell me, future self, so I can be ready.
If he’s dead, I need to be ready, so tell me.
In thirty years, will this house still be ours?
In forty years, will this house still be ours?
On the porch, I dare a glance behind me.
On the porch, I glance behind me again—
to my husband or my reflection?
My husband stars in my reflections:
the man on stage who shook his long hair back.
The man on stage shakes his long hair back—
my husband, an answer I don’t yet know.
My husband, the answer I don’t yet know:
Is he alive inside, making coffee?
Melissa Fite Johnson is the author of Green (Riot in Your Throat, 2021) and While the Kettle’s On (Little Balkans Press, 2015), a Kansas Notable Book. She is also the author of A Crooked Door Cut into the Sky (Paper Nautilus Press, 2018), winner of the Vella Chapbook Prize. Her poems have appeared in Pleiades, SWWIM, Whale Road Review, Broadsided Press, and elsewhere. Melissa teaches high school English in Lawrence, KS, where she and her husband live with their dogs.
Art: Public Domain