Before We Give Back the Keys
Dragging the hose through the kitchen,
I stand behind the window screen
and aim at the mud-dauber nest
sealed to the sill—a small clay room.
Forgive me, I say,
as water opens it.
You ask if it was empty.
I tell you no one was home.
Later, pruning the roses,
I hear a buzz catch
in the leaves.
Under the cherry tree,
split fruit sweetens in the grass.
The parsley burns
at the pot’s dry rim.
I keep looking
until you call twice
from the front porch.
At the doorway, lifting the last box,
I see where the couch struck the wall
the day we carried it in.
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Read by Kimmy Chang
Kimmy Chang is a McKinney-based writer and computer vision engineer. A 2026 Writers’ League of Texas Fellow and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apple Valley Review, wildscape. literary journal, Qu Literary Magazine, and Third Wednesday, among others. Read more at https://www.kchang.xyz/.