SUDDEN RAIN
Here's the thing: I've never had
My tackiness turned back on me.
The silver glitter, the blue plastic,
The sharp rainbow: my very own
Rosy orange sunrise. Suffocating
In the heat and salt, we spoke
Hushed about The East, and wished
That the room was really a dock
Standing in the olives and browns
of a silver tipped lake. It was
Melancholy thenas final liberation
Always is, melancholy
Like late afternoon heat and distance
Like sudden rain
Like the curse of much requested
good-byes.
Sally Blue
ADVANTAGE
Silent,
finding refuge in the grocery store,
ears perked between the cabbage and fat, white
asparagus.
Sorting waxy apples, knowing the potatoes do not
have eyes,
I have forgotten how to be afraid.
I do know florescent patterns, expect
abundance, curse the wheel on my cart that
can only go forward by going in circles.
Sweet tricky smell of hope: jalapeños and cinnamon,
rough vanilla beans, bundles of chamomile (manzania)
without time
for delicate steeping
Suicidal, I don't buy duct tape or study the confusion
of headlines. I wonder instead about ice,
dental floss, trial-sized energy bars.
The doors open and close neatly.
I push between them, cursing my basket,
half-full.
Sally Blue
