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THE CHIMNEY
By David Troupes
The moment we saw the apartment we wanted it:
the old coil radiators, the bay windows full of
afternoon light, farmland all around, and then
woods, and then hills. A chimney ran through the
living room, floor to ceiling, no fireplace, no
outlet: someone else's chimney. Trucks from a
nearby quarry came and went at all hours, and
we would lie awake at five in the morning
wondering who could be so desperate for our
dirt. I started my job, you started yours. In the
evenings, before evenings disappeared, we took
walks down what trails we could find,
trespassing along the power line cutting, through
that pure New England of grays and browns and
pale yellows: trees reeling with wind, fields
sopping with rain, old wooden pylons, old stone
walls, a plot of corn stalks, a plot of kale stumps.
Transports from a nearby airbase circled
overhead like ugly miracles, gouging into the sky
a wound of sound, reminding us of the wars our
governments were fighting, of the soldiers sent to
kill and be killed. Winter came. I stood in the
cold pinked mornings, letting the car run a
minute, pacing the driveway, waiting for you to
come down. Heat rose from the chimney-top
three stories up—a shimmy of daylight, a wobble
of spent air—rose as you made yourself ready,
hid your beauty with fear, or your fear with
beauty—rose clean into the bluing blue.
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