MAN ACROSS THE COBBLESTONE

Write the title out, the words as pure as steam. This will be an okay abstract ode. In and out flickers, like in Lake Saranac, some solo feeling of wading through other people’s objects, and now the boy you flash flood loved is in love with a bigger girl, a girl with her own littler girl, named for the Lion King and screaming down a backyard waterslide.

A letter or a poem? An explanation, or a trailing tangent? I left the burner on. Cliché is an ingredient in the psychology I poke and prod. Herbal gloss that makes the pain diluted. Alanna making a U turn and we were talking, talking, until we realized we were driving, driving two hours in the wrong direction. Rise to turn the burner off. Strain the grain out from the coffee, black like a lake isn’t but seems.

I inherited her angle device. I inherited a lot. Man juts his leg cross the cobblestone, man wears tank top, man has a whole life that is a whole mystery to her then to me now and I’ll loop-de-loop more get-off dream equations to any barfly who’ll listen -  no, not any, I’m lying again. The two Rainier Beach girls testing out the rich white bar that has no money in the bank. They are peacocks I am pigeon. They have baroque gothic script up and down their fore arms, I have jam on my knee. They have me take their picture again, again, again. None are right but they thank me anyways.

Cole made a meal at an establishment’s table with foods from another establishment because that is one of his trademarks. Cole is a bag lady and a tramp. Cole is a vixen hermaphrodite. He is a small boy saving chocolates so his mother won’t die. He is a believer in other people. He is a believer, crying into the steering wheel outside of the Laundromat while the city cries rain. We are reckless and hateful on the boring roads looking for a store with a blender. Back home I am just normal.

Did you let yourself get like that, Nonnie? Yes but different I’m guessing. Documenting plant life in the spiral bound. I won’t try and make it romantic. If I had been older, wiser while you were living I would have worn perfume, I would have shown you how funny I can be sometimes. Shaking talons in and out of the pocketbook. Strong nail beds. Broken nails are my motif.