The
sky is a slice of gray that extends from the lemon tree to the
telephone pole to the electric wires crossing the gray at diagonals
so the negative space between the lines is a series of triangles
turned on end.
There are nine wires from here if counting.
Each
coiled in black material that must keep us from the shock of
it.
And why bother?
And why not?
Moments kept paralyzed between the interior and
exterior or the two sides of us are in conflict with our selves
and with the
other.
You’re an asshole.
You say it over email and then we agree.
But not why this time
and so there’s nothing to move ahead
into the light that keeps moving regardless of you me we.
The grass is artificial in that part of the park but it looks
like grass nonetheless but doesn’t smell it.
It makes knees
slam softer into shin bones or into ligaments and tendons that
hold us put together softer knees.
Something bigger than our
selves.
Families and then so many families in so many cities
and then so many cities in so many regions and then so many
regions in so many countries and then this says nothing of watersheds
or
wildlife or mountain ranges and streams and large bodies
of water that are already separating regions and systems
and
so
I lose
count and come back to you me we.
This is to say the level
of toxins as air pollution and pesticides as run-off.
Barn swallows are sparrow-sized and most familiar with a deeply
forked tail or upperparts are dark steely blue even iridescent
and underparts buff throat and forehead are rusty terracotta
cantaloupe and low burgundy moon.
Two navy blue silhouettes of
swallows facing each other across the shoulder blades of her
back so she called them traditional
bird tattoos.
I traced them on to paper and then traced them
on to fabric and then from blue circles to plum swirls to lavender
felted
sweater
then stitch two purl one or repeat after me.
Her hair was
the required long and gray gone wiry with all the star tattoos
she kept spread across her arms and legs.
Ours was a story but it was not like this.
Not like this way
they wanted it to end.
All the freeways oversecting and undersecting overhead in Oakland
and the Canada Geese shifting weight from one webbed foot to
the other then shifting weight between.
Waddle when we go it.
We walk from here to there for warm or
warmer apple cider on Saturday afternoons.
In Brooklyn the park
arches out towards the statue kept in the center of the traffic
circle as if to keep all this swirling
in some pattern or some circular connection like ligament
and tissue and tendon and spaces around the knees or like
the circular
traffic pattern makes knees slam softer into shin bones
or into
ligaments and tendons that hold us put together softer
knees.
On a good day we sit with our backs let go to the benches and
watch the cars cross then cross between.
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