I bought a unicorn. Swapped
it for my work-a-day black
espresso taken with a daily dose
of state-of-the-world and self-disgust.
All sweet-tart pink
powder & blue syrup, topped
with a spiral of pure white cream;
you needn’t tell me no one needs that crap,
the processed sugar & color, short-
chained fats, the plastic cup;
I savored every last drop, followed it up
at the Salvation Army
with a pair of crocheted pants
and a sleeveless fringed tank
2 sizes too large that reads:
love the little things.
life
waiting (outside the same cafe where i wrote my mother’s funeral poem)
across the street, two men
argue over the ubermensch,
and a cricket hops brokenly
cross paving stones. from
the corner, scrying: how long
have we sung summer songs
and dreamt of october? running
yellows as they slip to fall,
sometimes it feels
like putting a bandaid
on a bleeder, not tying it off
with knots-in-silk. surgeons
would know these things,
but it is too late
to catch the sun heading
already south, and south
again. across the street,
two women argue
over love & champagne.
the cricket is gone. a maple
tree sighs sickening
as it sleeps in an ocean
breeze, and finally
october yawns & stretches.
This night, there are no stars.
watching sky darken,
we contemplate
words like leaden,
sultry, in-
digo. but leaden
is closer to
the slivered prison
of my rib-cage,
bars behind which
this ache pro-
creates. sultry
means barefoot river
afternoons and indigo
has always been
grotesque, except
on peacocks.
so instead i watch
raindrop veins
on plateglass,
think of melting &
the sublimation
of misted breath,
remember sweat
on glasses,
graveled chaos,
rug-burnt morning
sunlight before
the world changed.
but these windows
will not open and we
feel guilty for
our guilt, wonder
why the stars
stay absent. are
river afternoons so
different, now?
we watch and already
rain is slowing; veins
close & strand drops
in streetlit glass,
almost like star-
light. almost.
