Phoenicia
A young girl's elbow pushes up through the dirt golden with the sunlight on it. Linda calls her Aphrodite.
I want to call anything by their name & sing it clear, & know it true. In my little laptop – the promise of community.
Contained in a box my hands pry open like claws of life reversed. Its heat almost pulsing.
I no longer know when we cross the threshold into intimacy. A weak pelvic floor is small talk. But the cock in my mouth makes you recoil.
Where is community? In flesh, in farts, in public spaces, where people with unfamiliar strangeness move in and out as gods.
The Jewish deli closed, the only spot to buy good soju turned into a parking lot. & in their shutting I forgot to enjoy light, the delight of a missing train, & something brilliant shared.
On campus it is sleeting. I watch a boy juggle in a thin white shirt. He throws red pins in the air as young ice pelts his young neck.
Why do I recoil? What does it mean to return to a painting over and over? Return to a museum for one painting. Why is that not nature?
Standing still, standing inside of it. Stepping into the container instead of observing the contained.
I move through trees like a gallery, sit with sun on the back of my hair, & already I'm renewed.
Hey. Friends are coming. They're walking towards you in the meadow. Look –
in conversation with Linda Gregg's “Singing Enough to Feel the Rain”
