Talisman

For He Whose I Am

The bus had been 19 hours and 12 minutes of wasted time.

“What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I obviously wasn’t thinking, judging by your reaction.”
“Go home.”
“Okay.”

She was now seated on the bench at the bus station, under the pretense of waiting for the next bus. In her hands, she held the pocket watch.

“That one.”
“This one? Miss, this one is an expensive watch.”
“I know.”
“Ok. Cash or charge?”
“Is it extra to engrave?”
“No, Miss. It’s complimentary. I will get you a sheet of paper.”

For he whose I am.

Counting her money again, she hesitated from buying a ticket. Why did she think he would come and stop her? Just because she came so far? Held back this long, her tears were heavy, overripe and finally fell like devastating bombs on the dry skin of her hands.

Feeling better after her cry, she stood up with purpose to buy her ticket and return home. She would write the whole thing off as an experience, an adventure, and fodder for her work. Maybe she would even get a book out of it…

“Violet!” Then, he was there.

Skin

someday to me someday’s skin someday’s taste
fantasy to you, fantasy’s skin, fantasy’s taste
forever to us
forever skin

Dream I

She would run from the house, lifting her rough skirts to increase her speed. To get there. The shouts of the sisters would echo, but she would ignore them and laugh, casting her eyes up to a blue sky. The sound of the tall grasses played drums on her tall boots. She would get there, she would. Defying all the rules, she would make it to the place, the illusion he had bloomed in her earthen mind. She would search the forest, wondering if it was all a Victorian fairytale, had she burned her bridges in a free fall for no reason, no promise.

But in her dream, he was there. His clear eyes darted to the side and she saw the carvings. And then he was gone again. She felt with her fingers tips and the wood still hummed and burned with life. She read it like a map and was off.

A new course charted.

So She Says II: A List

Let me get you started:

Good mother, wife and friend.

Gifted writer.

Believer in fairies and fate and God.

Dreamer who hasn’t lost her faith in love.

A Certain Kindness

Each work morning lately I’ve taken to going to Au Bon Pain for coffee before work. For a week or two, I’ve noticed a “homeless” man. I don’t know if he literally is homeless, but he literally looks crazy. Wild, long untrimmed grey and white hair, including a beard. He is always in the same jeans, same shirt, same coat. So I deduce, being the veteran city girl I am, he is homeless. The talking and scowling at no one really hammers home the crazy.

A week ago, he noticed me. I think more accurately, he noticed me noticing him. Once he noticed me noticing him, he made it a point to notice me when I came in the coffee place. Again, the city girl in me notes this and notes also that it could be trouble. Because you see…

I give off a vibe. How does one describe this vibe? I don’t know, but this particular worm brings in a certain kind of fish. That’s what I’ve deduced so far. And didn’t this particular crazy come by at the right time, just in time to test my theory.

And test it he did.

Yesterday morning, the homeless man was standing two blocks down, staring at the train exit I depart from. I said nothing, but as I approached, eye contact became accidentally inevitable as he just stood there. Our eyes met briefly and I continued on to ABP. I thought to myself that it was weird he wasn’t in there with his usual coffee and orange juice that I’m pretty sure the manager gives him for free since the orange juice from ABP is like 5 bucks or something outrageous like that. But maybe I had missed his ABP time.

The next day, he is right at the tip of Valenti, where the painted brick sign for Canal St still haunts like a war time tattoo.

Fuck, I say to the morning air, knowing this time there will be words. I am incapable of not giving this person the respect of acknowledgement. He is standing in my path and we have seen each other before. He is already talking before I speak.

” Morning, morning…” He mumbles and his voice gets low and unintelligible.

“Good Morning.” I say simply and continue walking.

“Morning, Jesus is coming…”

The next day he is directly outside the coffee shop, telling the empty street; “Its been so many gathered…”

I can’t help but agree with him.

Lobster Pie

“It’s a secret we’ll keep, you and I.” Eyebrows shot up in the air suggestively, “and no one will look for us.” Brolo swept his arm out, like a maître de. A trickle of red caught Creak’s attention.

“Your gut is bleeding again.” Creak said and pointed with a fat stubby dirty nailed digit at Brolo’s belly.

“It will cease.” Straightening up a bit, Brolo glanced around, looking for something.

“Here, take mine.” Creak offered a bluish clear vial, a tiny pearl bounced happily around the bottom.

“Old Bosco was right to make us take these with us, huh?” Holding out a soiled hand, Brolo accepted the gift, but slipped it in his pocket for the time being.

“He is right sometimes.” There was a rat-tat-tat about a quarter of a mile away. It made Brolo and Creak jump.

“Can you see yet?” There was uplift to Brolo’s voice, a nasal whine.

“No. And I reckon I don’t want to.” Creak scooted back against another tree. It felt good to be in a sitting position. “Soon they will start a crawling approach…”

“What?” Brolo said. Creak noticed a subtle gloss of blood and angry blooms on an otherwise deathly pale face.

“I think it’s a line from Shakespeare or something.” As he responded, Creak decided to say more, even if the subject matter would make him sad. “Made me think of this time when I went with my family to the shore, and there was a terrible storm and all these lobsters started pouring from the sea.”

“No shit.” Brolo was happily distracted and Creak noticed the blood had stopped, as predicted.

“Yep. And we were all so shocked, so dumbfounded; we just stood there, watching them.” Creak could taste the ocean salt on his lips, hear the screaming gulls, feel the tight elastic of his bathing suit, smelled the coconut sunblock on his skin.

“Weird.” Brolo said a bizarre smile flashing across his face. He picked up his gun and loaded another clip, “They are coming now. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Lowering his voice, Creak cracked his neck and stood up. Soldier’s posture overtook him and he became all business.

“Did you ever eat lobster again?” Brolo asked as he spat a glob of bubbles on the ground. Creak saw them coming now, began to unconsciously count them.

“What?” Creak was leaving this place where he was human, ready to do his job out from behind the triangle shadows in the wartime land.

“After such a miraculous sight, were you able to eat lobster again?” Brolo asked, his tone of childlike wonder out of place when he donned his helmet.

“I don’t remember.” Creak’s voice had changed, deeper and more detached.

“Sometimes it’s better that way.” Brolo went first. He was the commanding officer, after all.

Yes Times

one frightened

                              girl I be

leave your mark

all over me

Dramaturgical Skies Dawned

Deep pollution pounds, crows’ wings might,
fate’s the whipping boy, Giving up/crazy lies,
sounds are clouds Billows torn from the same
cloth as magenta and fire flies besides the horizon
line I gave you three tries. Steps away Learning
don’t extend the parastite propagandaist for any old
Tom Dick or Harry who crosses the hearth
Never trust a holy man

Church 14 by Eric Alder

Swallow As Gospel

While on
Scabrous loam

Grenade Pin
Drop everything abrade
To carry your pain

I will not give way
Gonfalon
Your cause
I will perch, a picklin’ insides
at the bottom of the archaic barrell
At the parting
Of the seas
chest high prayers to God
while pillaging the earth

Further down the road
Catch me, cavalier castaways
cavorting
In amaze of haze
I’m a masquerade without

proper parade

I don’t know why I do these things
Rouge rough cheeks

breakout cherries on beds of peach cells
Spindle pearl
In your fish net
Stalkings

Fleeting flouncing
Fleeing, then trouncing
Announcing
I don’t know why I do these things!

None of us do, dear…