They who scale mountains
content themselves with the feeling
of love, not confirmed
with action. They can fly the arrow- never mistake- truer
than any romantic. But
height is a lofty mistress, and the
keenness of the wind is
ever seductive, because it whistles
the story clearly that gets
mangled below.
Who -wants- to get mangled?
We are not beasts of burden, even if
we've worn this fur for thousands of years.
To dive from the clean, clean edge into
chaos is unthinkable.
To frolic among the tumbling bodies
and risk trampling and being trampled
is enough to curl back and reach
for the highminded pleasures
of love
Oh, bu
an eyelid flashing white
the city hangs upside down
I fold the laundry as the world
melts and stops
holding it in
sheer relief
these spaces between scorching
the air between walls
my feet
feel damp
the ankle whines,
squeezing-
just thinking about the
sidewalks in the morning
where carts of
food, quicker than pedestrians
will set up, as will
hundreds of suitcases
attached to bodies
routine, unsurprising
even,
this upset of habitual motion
where the earth is pounded and cleaned
during the night
and day draws upon us
a more marked closing,
a slow sun
raising its lashes
against sheets of smog,
pillowcases of cigare
I am handed
tomatoes
astonishing in
their
smooth red skins
that slide off
with heat
to wrinkle like an
old woman's
heartbeat
without
remorse, I
must hold them
how could
I explain
the weight suspended
here, inside
of me like
heavy groceries
this big
polluted world, beautiful
in its own withering
too much
I want
to
say
but those
two syllables would
fall, incomprehensible
like a mouth
refusing to eat
so I carry in
the produce, their
straining
plastic lining
and put them away.
I wake up with
gauze in my mouth, wounded
from the inside out. I am the
kind of patient whom a doctor fears
and forgets his handshake for, in
his haste to finish smiling.
the days fly before me
like magpies, coughing more than
me, thick and
black. rebuking in its irritation,
rattling with longing.
all around me they are falling to their
knees and still I wave
my dogged red flag. when I am
tired of living I will stop. this seems
like a reasonable statement, but
when I spat blood in the
sink, they kept fixing the plumbing.
I am eighteen
years old on a friday
night
in new york city
reading bukowski. I cried
a little, earlier,
trying to jump on
the words who
wanted to be left
alone, like
a girl
on friday night.
so I lay down
on my bed
with the old
man's new
book
and now I'm all
weepy again
because he writes
about good people
with cat's souls.
I know
exactly what
he's talking
about, and
my cat's all
the way back in
virginia.
I Hope New York Does Not Sink- by mySeity, literature
Literature
I Hope New York Does Not Sink-
Open, these
arms like elevator doors
aggravated too many times
by the pressing of a button.
The dark breaks in through my curtains
and I am looking at a stranger
the way I never do on the train. Each day
is sun and jeans and aching licking at heels, traveling
around the ankle, throat
much lighter than kneecap, eyes
wider than my stride.
The first thing I
learn from the city is why
my posters keep falling off the walls.
They are colorful and expressive, but
do not know how to cling
to that which sustains their brightness.
We are seven blocks off broadway
and the traffic is spot on. I am
constantly
five minutes ahead
There are trees in Manhattan by mySeity, literature
Literature
There are trees in Manhattan
Sun
over smog, like
a light struggling to
become clear, over the
makeshift heads of buildings.
I wave
my hand like a flag and
hope that I am still patriotic.
Across the street there
are single candles, standing
like houseplants
on the seventh floor sills.
You look away, a window closing
I draw the curtains.
Solos burst free from
a carefully orchestrated
week. I listen to the hum
inside my chest, then
surrender it to the traffic
though just along the river
thin red-tipped reeds sprout out of wanting
before a family
materializes
we sit on our brushes
of air
and dream of painting life
into existence.
birds, perched
on the other side of the wall
mock us with their
zest for living
before dawn.
improbably, the loudest calls
now emerge from inside,
fluttering past the door into the trees.
if I unzipped your
spine, what would
I find underneath?
you smile at me
with the conviction
of someone who has never
tried to count his ribs.
would that you
miss one, so that it
could come back in triumph
but no, you are the type
whose skeleton
would never abandon
you ride an elevator
all the way down
to my stomach. by this time
I have hopefully stolen
up into your heart.
these architectural
details
make us forget
the possibility
of undoing the
entire structure
when you buy
a new pair of stockings,
trust blossoms in
a second skin, an
onionskin mask against
stage floors, infidelity, and
car exhaust
I bled through the
knee when I fell, going
down to the flat part
of town. you should
have asked me whether I
always tripped on my way
towards relief, but
you only winced
at the stained rayon.
I fiddled with
a loose thread as I
practiced picking up
the phone, rehearsing
for a play that
would never show
this hosiery full of holes
each one a reason
for the lack of seams
between us
I seemed to wear
you for six glorious weeks
that tangled
and ran, until
we lay discarded
at the