Nicole Siciliano is a public relations professional working in financial services in New York City. She turns to creative writing and poetry as a hobby  to rediscover the softness and vulnerability of everyday life that can oftentimes be overlooked by its mania. She is most often inspired by the power of the shared experience. A graduate of Stony Brook University and New York University, She currently resides in Astoria, Queens.

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Laundry

When my grandfather died,
my grandmother slept with his pillow
for ten years.

Even after the sheets were washed,
she swore she could still smell him.

And I think about this as I fall asleep
your side of the bed.

You’re not dead. You’re just
somewhere else.

But I’ve been trying to calculate
the mathematical probability of
meeting you again
in a subway car

and I know that you are just as gone
as the melancholy branches on my family tree.

Sometimes

I still count the skyscrapers
between my office building and yours.

I daydream the quiet of your bedroom
before the crash of your alarm.

I do the crossword.

I watch the news.

 

I started doing my own laundry

again.

 

[image: city mornings | scott w. h. young]