Monday, May 16, 2011

"Campus Coffee" by Christy Callahan

Photo by Colin Michael Shaw


Christy Callahan was one of ten readers who stepped up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the April 4 reading at Duff's.

The next reading will be Monday, May 23, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Eileen G'Sell, Susan Spit-Fire Lively, and Robert Nazarene.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Campus Coffee

On Friday, my husband boards a plane for Missouri,
honeymoon shifting to a semester abroad.
I stare out the window of my Galway hostel,
and if I squint enough, I can see him return.

I lay on my bed’s patterned quilt,
hand-sewn edges tattered and fraying,
and coil myself into a dream.

When sleep no longer charms,
I sit on the stoop with the landlord’s
cat, watching pigeons dethroning
one another from the streetlight.

By Sunday, I am tired of sleeping,
and my dreams are starting to contain
more pigeons than people.

When my phone fails to find my husband
I walk one block left, return to the stoop,
then one block right, eyes on the streetlight,
pigeons volunteering as tour guides of Galway.

On Monday, I tell the pigeons it’s time
and walk three blocks past the roundabout
to my summer apartment at Gort na Coiribe.

Wednesday morning I walk in windy rain
across the bridge that passes a dilapidated
tower house, a smile tugging my left cheek
as I picture myself crawling through its rubble.

The first day of class still makes my palms sweat.

On Friday, the pigeons develop a buddy system to trigger
the automatic doors of the university, stroll to the café,
and order white chocolate banana mochas, shooting me a wink.

-- Christy Callahan Clagett

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