Bella Makes Order: A Bedtime Story

Again, she finds herself humming
while stocking the shelves:
silver harmonica, penny arcade,
unwritten aubade, broken bottle neck.
What luck--she often daydreams
a story for everything and tucks each in her boot
for later. Her stories are savored
like tiny cakes fairies leave
for good people. Her stories grow stories
of their own and are well behaved.
Outside, the forest sighs because it loves her.
Everyone does sometimes. She sets the table.
She eats a lonely dinner by the fire.
The dinner table never tires of her stories.
There once was a sweet boy who lived in a far away town, not unlike this one,
but not like it either. In another town that wasn't his but only close by lived a
sad girl who had no voice. She left pink stones, smooth and small as swallow's
eggs, on his doorstep every evening as he slept. She placed pressed flowers in the
books he took from the library. She sang silent songs at his window because she
thought he might hear her. Every day he played music in his garden because
he knew one day the stones would hatch butterflies.
Then Bella clears the table.
She hums to herself and her kitchen,
puts away the bowl, the salt, her spoon.
Quietly, the clock sends her to the bedroom
and again, as she closes her eyes,
she hears a mandolin from far away.

Pamela Burdak