Turn Left

Courtesy Phoenix Art Museum

Turn Left

after Philip C. Curtis’ The Bride’s Descent

We watch your descent

just out of frame

caught mid-stair

head bowed in prayer

or maybe mourning.

The empty bedroom

echoes behind you

as the floor below

turns chessboard –

the next move is yours.

Turn right

toward the empty chair

and its funeral parlor

stillness where future

and inevitability wait.

Turn left

into the red velvet

throat of disappearing

out the distant door

with your hands open

and your head up.

~ Collin Kelley

This poem originally appeared in the Four Chambers Press anthology Poetry and Prose for the Phoenix Art Museum.