Tom Laichas

Aria

The boy’s house is asthmatic
taking short-sheeted breaths
from night-sweated jasmine. 

Floors, walls, windows—
wash them all down in a tea
of lemon, honey, and cloves. 

But the attic! The garage!
the cellar! The avocado leaves
dark green, air hot, the moths, 

the bees, the dust, the needle
on its 78, Callas bringing me,
the boy, to aria. She sings— 

Si. Mi chiamano Mimi
I live alone, quite alone,
in a little white room

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Tom Laichas is author of three collections, most recently Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Mudlark, Prairie Schooner, The Amsterdam Review, Plume, The Moth (Ireland), The Irish Times and elsewhere. He lives in Venice, California.