1.

 

People who have seen

me think that something’s up.

They look deep through my leaves

at the roots I have gathered

into knots and piecemeal lassos.  

From this Union Square Park,

I peek between fingers at Tuscany,

a spring in Berlin’s distance, and open wider

for dentures certainly coming my way.

In a world of wax over paper curtains,

I am known for causing traffic jams.

Slinking down the wall like a gelatinous dog,

I’ve always suspected the ladies I’ve known

long for more than silk butterflies.

They watch the index finger’s trajectory.

One girl in red pants guessed

at my architecture but

I never let on. 

 

*

 

This smiling city with a total

dispatch of ten plus us

watches chronic futures

weave and segregate,

unfolding on the sidewalk unfurling

at our steps in soiled cocktail dress.

 

Nearby, a visible woman’s hand counts minutes,

the first allusion to clock-like wisdom.

She inserts aging powder from the skin of her purse

into hands against the steering wheel.

She ignores old needs and fashions tunes that fight

for her cause, should she reinstate one.

She enjoys lying in the trunk of her Cracker Jack box.             

 

 

 

 

*

I offer no proof for any of this.  There is no photo except

of the past.  I trace her lines of black mascara,

blotted-out gestures and the hammer on that woman— 

surprise and surprise.

 

My audio mission

until the end

has been to lend an ear

to the chaos of practical measures,

an answer to exact scenery,

one that gives up the goods

with a spoon in her back

and on auto-pilot floats the same

scream and whistle down

congruently empty streets.

Casual patrons between sips avoid them.

 

 

2.

 

Now I will turn to talk about

everyone and everything

in this particular environment.

You thought you were alone room-wise

with the rest of us, but she flashes between

in-person bodies, whispers to present-tense ears,

 

“A music is not a home.” 

 

She won’t adhere

to personal space.

She won’t appear

as a potted plant.

 

When I write “her” or “hands against,”

I don’t always mean the woman in question.

 

*

 

For example, riding repetition has

its limits but not on such

a woodpecker’s bench for see-sawing.

We ride, we raid, electronically, we deviate. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We occlude, denude and expatriate. 

These symptoms resist contemporary sense making. 

I grew up on a balcony with two white rabbits

and one clay flowerpot, respectively.

Details don’t invest in narratives; we do it for them.

 

*

 

For the moment, blood is only part of what

I’m bleeding:  I’ve found ways

to get my rabies below

the antibacterial radar.

You who were my first windshield

enabled the roads to dust-cut conclusions—

 

Planted on this bench, I am hard hit

that my tears are alone

against my cheeks. 

As a well-trained American, my focus

shifts toward the hunt for a better bargain

and an evermore dire diagnosis.

It’s never been easy knowing an emergency

often happens in my absence.

 

As usual, I have failed to draw a history

of the present placid.

You, however, in a short-but-future distance

can go through the span of our solar system and touch

the breath of stars that were never ours in passing.

 

If you ask about the desert, you’ll find I never made it.

 

Long ago, I learned behavior beside a church

when I turned to my neighbor and said,

“If you’re ever in need, rise up and call me

at first light.”  With our go-between wires,

dawn hereby arrives behind the sounds

of residual persons in sight.

 

 

 

© Amy King