In a suburb of your city, an old woman sits alone in her evening kitchen. It has been drizzling for days. The TV chatters; she pays it no attention. She is drinking whiskey, looking blankly at the air. Every so often she says something, the same phrase each time, but we are too distant to hear her. Darkness deepens the spaces between each drop as the rain starts falling with purpose. The noise of the rain seems to rouse her. She gets up, wincing, and walks to the living room, where she stands in front of the large picture window. She puts her palm flat against the chilly glass and says something loudly, in a slurred voice, twice. She falls into an easy chair and starts to cry, as full dark falls across the living room, where a small reading lamp is turned low. The house makes its own noises around her in response. The dog stands by the doorway watching.
Soon she will get up and walk back to the kitchen.
She will sit at the table and sip her drink and then the melted ice. All she really wants now, to be honest, is to lie down on the kitchen floor, lights on, and sleep. Her little dog will lick her face and sit beside her, waiting patiently for morning, when she’ll let him out to pee. Now he just settles down beside her.
Michael Hettich’s most recent book of poems, Waking Up Alone, won the Lena M. Shull Book Award from the NC Poetry Society. His previous book, A Sharper Silence (2025), has been called a “heartfelt, heartbreaking collection” (Marie Harris), and his 2023 collection, The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2022 won the 2024 Brockman-Campbell Book Award. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in journals and anthologies, and he has published more than a dozen books of poetry across four decades. He serves as the coordinator of the NC Poetry Society’s Distinguished Poet program and lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
12 poets 