Oh man today I drank too much chai and got wired
Cursed the body
Cause I can’t have coffee
Left the house
Took my gentrified (that means fat) ass out
Shifted out of anger when
I saw the divinely wretched sleeping trees
Bare and knotted thrown up branches
Spindly reaching arms
And twisty hippy trunks
No leaves
Just the jutted-out hip thigh and ass of
Brown sleeping women standing up
In artistic poses
On traffic islands
I saw flat splayed cactus leaves that I just know are filled with juice behind the spines
And I saw this at the fancy supermarket
Where the aisles of outrageous and bold and ugly and foreign produce
Whittle away my day
My time is available in bulk
I spend the bulk of my time lonely for the heat of a city I left for a man
And the promises he made
I don’t think he can keep.
But maybe he can.
For company,
I spend my days ravaging thrift stores
Sneezing through racks of cracked shoes
Fondling old women’s tossed blouses
And fighting rich bitches’ maids for a lopsided skirt
Gleaning the treasures from the shit on shelves
Thinking inane thoughts and here they are:
Pull up the hem
Lose a little poundage
Knit these two halves of sweaters together and make something utterly fantastique
Un-darn a toehole and dance all over the world hanging out free
Little polish here on this candlestick
Little 50 years there and it’ll be an artifact
There, I’m Sated
Dragging the booty up to the desk
And watching the woman with the frizzy trash hair
And the broken-in-half tooth ring me up
That crispy beaten down dull-eyed gal gave me a discount—
Felt sorry for me!
How appalling
How generous
How interesting that I have gratitude about it and
How can she possibly tell that I have holes in my heart?
Are they in my face?
I fell in love with her for a split second then snapped out—
All my things
All my other peoples’ things
Came to 8 dollars 17 cents
And only one skirt was too tight but
That’s allll right
Cause I’m cooking tonight
I’m cooking tonight
In my new domesticity
And my lack of poetry
And my irrepressible urge to run
I’ll cook for him tonight
In my broken-down skirt
In my broken-down skirt of slut plaid
I’ll cook
And forget the foolishness of writing things
That creates cracks in my well-to-do
I can’t wait to go to the New York and be poor again
It is Truth
I can’t wait to drink too much and beat myself up and write good words to redeem my misbehaviors
I can’t wait to dream down the streets cold as a bitch
Miss my man and think if I went back we’d make it hot like it used to be before we cohabitated
And things got like the inside of a chummy buddy-pal treehouse—
Benign thinking
Platonic loving
Mild and affectionate fighting
Falling asleep with our heads touching
After our feast of sloppy peanut butter sandwiches and then
Climbing down and being separate.
I can’t wait to smoke impatiently in Fort Green Brooklyn
And blow it towards the yellow building
That grimes and filths and yet still remains bright
Outside my friend Lynne’s window on Cumberland Street
With her in her old deco 60s chair and in her Banana Republic PJs
And guilty cigarette in tow
With me in my lime green nightie on the futon sagged in places
The evening will be knitted with
Old theories about men that don’t matter
Brave promises about renewed attitudes that get
Thrown out when we need some drama and
Crave the aggravated intrigue it affords
Multiple Tarot card readings that make our eyes spirograph in our heads
Because we can’t leave well enough alone
God I miss New York
Even the shitty stuff.
That kept me alive—
Not survival alive but aware alive and creative alive and struggle alive
And maybe that is
Survival
Tell me now—
If you have a city that is like a lover that treats you badly
And yet you love him still
Because he is not quite BEATING you,
And when he loves you he loves you so GOOD
Do you flip him off and run?
Do you stay until your dreams with him that you know will happen if you just don’t give up too soon
Cause he really is caring and has a certain affection like towards an animal
have been realized?
Or do you pilfer through Salvation Armies and cook in real cast iron
Try and braid your dreams into the dreams of your man
And curse him for being too thick in the fingers to do it himself
Stroke your man’s beard
Sing your man’s songs
Open your man’s bed
Ding your man’s dong in the suburbs
Of a burnt-out ghetto tomb
Called Detroit.
Tell me—
Which dream is true?
Photo courtesy of Kathryn McCallum
