EMILIE MENZEL

Ellis

There is a window directly across the alley from Ellis’ window, and in that window there must also be a room in which a person lives, and in that room in which a person lives, that person must also be Ellis. Her lamp, too, glows yellow. Her chair, too, is red. She has yet to see a stranger at this window. She has yet to see a creature at the glass.

There is an object on the interior window sill of this room—inside the room across the alley from her—and it could be her typewriter. There is no evidence to conclude it is not.

There is a fine little blizzard at work outside their window. And the sun is setting quickly outside their window. The cat is meandering for food on her side of their window. The town hums forward as usual below.

And it is possible that the room is a room with her but a her that was herself two hours ago, the time in which she was in the other room napping or downstairs cooking or a space in which she would not pass by.

Ellis is coveting their window. She is aspiring to visit. She is planning that next Tuesday she will be at the window of the window across the alley from hers when Ellis is also at mine.

Emilie Menzel is a poet, writer, and finder. Her publications include Black Warrior Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and The Boiler, and her manuscript The Girl Who Became a Rabbit was a recent finalist for Tupelo Press’ Berkshire Prize. Emilie is the curator of The Gretel, a managing editor for The Seventh Wave, and a librarian-in-training. She lives online at emiliemenzel.com and @emilieideas.