do they still hold sleepovers
behind the textile plant,
on those burned-out chesterfields and
the la-z-boys with the brown foam
spilling out of the arms,
and do the bricks still smell like homemade
Portuguese wine
and wet takeout cartons
are the psalms still written on the plywood windows,
random angry verbs and treatises on
Vietnamese honey bees, and
big-G Gods and little-g goddamn ex-wives,
it’s all there, Mister Tinn, a written history
of living drunk on lower Caraway Street
but do you know what it is,
what it really is,
it’s all hidden in the uncomplicated folds of
the fabric of her skirt
like laurel leaves
under my fingers
that certain shade of green
and that certain breath she held
when she saw me approach her
and then
leave
and I’m
flicking cigarette butts into
coffee cans and soft brick window wells
clotted with three years worth of dead leaves
and I’m hoping
maybe something will ignite
and hey, there’s the new kid Carlos explaining again
the harmony of Samdhana yoga
to those with no fucking flexibility, he says
there was too much oneness between the sangria and his breath
when he tried his Yin posture on his teacher and her husband
swore he would beat the living shit out of him
if he tried that kind of
harmony
again
so do you think maybe he’s old enough
to end up dying here
with the rest of us
Powerful imagery!
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Thank you, and thanks for reading!
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This is stunning–the imagery is so vivid, and that last stanza just keeps echoing in my mind.
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Thanks so much, I’m glad you liked it. 🙂
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Amazing, Steven. You find just the right words – beautiful and sharp and raw.
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Thank you, Diana. Sometimes these things just show up at my door.
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I love it when they do.
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me too. 🙂
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You’re fantastic at painting a picture with your words. Wow -> “…and do the bricks still smell like homemade
Portuguese wine and wet takeout cartons…”
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Thanks so much, Mary. 🙂
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Wow
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Thank you!
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Wow, your writing is wonderful. You should continue it, a short story perhaps, a novel?
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Thank you so much. I may pick it up again at some point, but there’s already one in the works. 🙂
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Glad to see more of your poetry. Beautiful as always.
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Thank you so much.
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