I stare at the trees, watching them sway.
And yet, I search closer;
the way the branches fold in the shadows,
the pine needles bending,
melding to the wind.
And yet, I search closer;
closer, closer, impossibly closer,
to the mitosis of our cells dividing,
all at once beautiful and tragic.
Nighttime in winter, overlooking a part of the city that’s packaged as a moment of movement. I look out at the church across the street, illuminated entrance casting echoes of darkness along the cool earth.
People still walk around the church, the library, the center square. Although it’s nighttime, it’s also only 4 p.m. Winter condenses the daylight into a few frozen hours, and that’s when the precious sun rays melt through the thick ice that holds the city in a deep breath. But now the darkness has claimed motion once again, and I watch the city slow down, a windup toy succumbing to the stillness.
If I were to take out my camera and record, this is where I’d do it: different voices slow into a sleepy mirage, made even slower by the chills of winter.
Everyone I know says their least favorite time of year is wintertime. But I think that there’s a quiet beauty in watching the city sleep.
Behind me on the steps, a couple holds each other’s hands. Leaning into one another; sharing their warmth throughout. I’m sitting by myself in front of the library, and it just closed for the evening. My breath fogs my glasses, blurring the lines between buildings and smearing their lights into the empty, icy sky.
In one of the busiest areas of the city, I’m transfixed in winter’s calm.
A hospital waiting room
full of silent sickness
— a sour, curdled space.
Meaningless sex.
Distrustful, hesitant, weary breaths
hang in-between careless caresses.
I’m aware that if I breathe in too deep,
our slinking loneliness and desperation
might curdle me too.
So I become the bed
the sweaty sheets wrapping
over your desolate thighs.
I don’t think I like
the way your mouth tastes,
but I kiss you back anyway.
I’m a patient,
waiting for my name to be called.
For some recognition of my
fragile, fragile identity.
Their ephemeral delicacy makes them glow like stars in the wandering breeze. Her arm doesn’t wave as high as it used to— arthritis claiming the freedom of her limbs. But she waves the bubble-gum pink wand slowly back and forth across the sky, painting the world with sweet, soapy bubbles. It’s been 25 years since her wife’s funeral. Gradually, the number of people who love her wonder has dwindled. So she calls to the skies, the earth, to claim her translucent, effervescent paintings before they
Pop!
I first walked past the apple core
during a dreary morning way to work.
The core of a bright fuji apple
looking artificial
on the edge of a dull concrete bridge
scattered with trash.
Days passed
the core slowly wilting.
A body without a burial
amidst littered humanity.
regardless of
brittle winter new england weather
rolling over
that dull concrete bridge,
the apple stayed.
“Who ate the apple?”
“Why did they leave it there?”
I wondered every morning.
We grew a passive intimacy,
like strangers who share a bus route.
Familiar only in looks, fleshy stenches, and wrinkled skin.
A jumble of wandering umbrellas
paint splotches of rain inside the city.
Street gutters roll thick with wet garbage
offering discarded philosophies to fat rats.
I dream of traveling in the spring
sunshine warming my soggy bones.
But the shadow of an alley drips
shaping the portrait of an empty man:
“You’ve wandered too far from consciousness, my dear.
It’s time to wake up.”
(An ode to Boston street musicians)
Perform to sidewalks
caked with forgotten humanity
—crushed styrofoam cups, burger wrappers, cigarette butts—
Sneak concerts
in pavement cracks;
Kintsugi through music.
Demand the space for your beauty.
For if you stop,
who else will I listen to
on a windy Thursday night
waiting for the T at Chinatown?
Parietal, occipital and frontal lobe
fused together —a big green waxy watermelon head.
A mandible and maxilla connected by corn,
golden glistening teeth that roll his mouth every time he laughs.
He cries bright-red strawberry tears
when he finds a pumpkin crushed by hungry deer,
or radish leaves nibbled on by curious rabbits,
or tomato plants starved by obnoxious aphids.
Day after day he works his crops,
protecting them like they are his children.
Clavicles cut from celery stalks,
scapulas peeled from cabbages.
He picked the plums and apples from his trees
stacked them together to form his vertebral column.
Every day when the sun shines brightest in the sky
he bends backward,
letting the sunlight enter his welcoming bones;
A sunflower of most peculiar creation.
Ribs ripped out of the ground,
carefully cleaned carrots that wrap around his torso.
Protecting the area of
what could be,
what should be,
his heart and his lungs.
Late at night, as he stares up at the galaxy of stars,
he imagines he can hear the “Ba-bump! Ba-bump!”
of his loving, lonely heart.
He swings his hoe with his cucumber humerus,
pulls weeds with his sweet potato radius and ulna.
Fingers plucked from bunches of snap peas that click, click, click
as he delicately touches his gardening tools.
Hip-bone and scrotum,
sweetly sliced cantaloupe.
But the sugary drips of his pelvis attract ants while he sleeps.
So every morning he dusts off their curious pinchers,
carefully making sure not to squash them.
Femurs built out of zucchinis
lifted by tibias and fibulas of squash.
Fragile patellas bend to pet a fluffy neighborhood dog,
kneecaps carefully carved out of onions.
Potatoes dig into the soft soil as he walks;
large, clunky, wobbly feet.
He used to have cherry tomato toes,
but those were eaten by mice a couple of months ago.
As the summer grows into fall,
a bountiful harvest season blooms in the garden.
He took care of his crops well.
But the summer heat pruned his corn mandible and maxilla.
The plums and apples of his vertebrae bent,
melting, rotting in the sun.
Now his snap pea fingers can’t quite grip the hoe
—or rip out the weeds—
and his potato feet
take root in the soil.
The approaching winter calls the gardener’s bones
to take rest with the earth,
to sleep with the snow.
He finally rests his weary watermelon head.
Knowing that when spring comes
this will all start over again.
lying on our backs,
staring at the sunset caught in-between bricks,
we pass a joint,
soggy from our lips,
the acrid taste of backwoods leaving burnt echoes in our lungs.
Down the hill a few men have gathered around in a circle,
playing with the hip-hop beats bouncing from their speaker.
Freestyle rapping.
I look over at you and I see you grinning.
“Black boy joy,” you say simply,
grabbing the joint from my fingertips.
I blow out the smoke I had been holding in,
letting the setting sun get covered in a smoky haze,
if only for a moment.
Her little arms can’t fit around the whole pile she raked up and she tips over, falling headfirst into the heavy leaves. She breathes in deeply, letting the decaying earth rest in her lungs. She giggles and rolls over in the pile, looking up at the trees glowing with sunlight, a mosaic of flame spread along her sky. An orange leaf sways, controlled by the soft breeze like a marionette, until it lands on her nose.
She tries picking up the leaves again, using her arms as a shovel and waddling into the house. Her dad comes out of the kitchen, following a trail of dirty leaves dragged through his house.
“Luna?” he asks.
“Hi dad!”
Sitting cross-legged in front of the washer is his daughter. Watching the leaves tumble around in the soapy water. Soon the leaves will clog the draining filter, their thin fabric ripped in the rinse cycle and caught in the machine. But for now the man sits next to his daughter and watches, a technicolor whirl of soap and leaves.
Brain Butterflies 