First poem in 15 years

This is the first poem I’ve written in more than 15 years. I wrote it for a poetry workshop I’m taking at UNLV, as a graduate assistant in the MFA creative writing program. (My concentration is fiction, but we have to take some poetry classes, too.) The theme of the workshop is the “immediately accessible sublime” or, as I simply interpret it, that which is near and dear.

This is the second draft. The teacher Donald Revell and my remarkably talented classmates provided plenty of feedback, a lot of which I incorporated into the poem.

Standing on the sidewalk

Screaming

Half English, half Farsi

Her refuge

Shattered

Interior lights on

Porch light off

The door splintered and ajar

Faceplate and screws

Sprawled across the floor

The scene is secured

Doors and drawers dusted

She enters

Past a palm print black on white

In the squad car

The officer asks questions

Despondent she responds

He pecks an antiquated computer

While reading aloud

“The victim stated that the jewelry

Was given to her

By her grandmother in Iran”

They leave us alone

Noticing a painting

She no longer likes

She observes

They never take what you want them to

With ink-stained hands

We push the suddenly mobile

Media center

Against the door

Drag the mattress into the living room

Everyone’s a suspect

The neighbor, the FedEx guy, the security guard

Finally a kiss good night

Then with all the lights on

We lie down and act like we’re asleep