what remains: gulls converge in a chasmic rain-filled pothole in the parking lot of an abandoned mall
An ephemeral asphalt pond after heavy rains in the parking lot of an abandoned mall, long-infested with gulls, as testimony – not merely to the inorganic evolution of consumerism, but of the intersection of NAFTA and other free-trade agreements, American soft segregation and hard apartheid, and the inherent discriminatory and predatory migration of US and Western global capitalism.
“He said that a man had to escape to the country to see the world whole and that he wished he lived in a desolate place like this where he could see the sun go down every evening like god made it to do.”
swish, swish, knock swish, swish, knock a rhythm, a metronome once a week, usually a Sunday
you felt very near to me today, also a Sunday,
me weeping while sweeping, or vice versa
my movement conjured you, conjured the once-me and the eternal you/ me, looking down from the landing// you, nearing the top of the narrow, 2-flat stairs in your white v-neck t-shirt or “dago-T” looking up over your thick glasses at me, with your big eyes with your snaggle-toothed smirk, a gold cap on your front tooth, and mustached/ the broom in your beautiful hands / you, pure lank, pure elegance
i wish it were a saxophone.
instead of a broom or steering wheel.
had i snapped a photo of you on them stairs with that familiar look/
my eyes stigmata overflowing saltwater corresponding heartache of this life, heartbreak of this world,
this cross of water, women carry
here i am
creating fresh watersheds from my headwaters/ my tears runoff / flowing tributaries converge into rivers desalinated in sediment of flesh/ creases of time and depth weather my face/ carved canyons carry rapids down my cheeks/ raging confluence pours into the lake of my mouth, onto bed of my tongue/ spilling waterfall down my throat into ocean of my heart/
a man who knew my father befriended me causing me to question the nature of my reality, my history, its validity, my possibly-false memories — all, viewed through the lens of the person who had a vested interest in indoctrinating me, who preferred my naïveté, under the guise of protectivity,
long, midnight, blue-black hair, unmistakably hers, melding into her pitch black jacket an uninterrupted flowing river of velvet she, a radiant silhouette,
like the haloed total solar eclipse that would occur later that year, in August
her regal face remains unseen, sustaining the mystery
then she rises like a sun to speak, and i am in her orbit
her first words: “i feel The Lake so very present in me.”
her voice ancient with the Earth in her throat
later, my glisteny eyes meet her glisteny eyes, i memorize her face, and her hands tattooed in black ink
she is dignity embodied, i think
she inscribes a protocol for me in my book of hers, made from trees,
i give her a cord necklace suspending glass vials of seeds watermelon, corn, clover and milkweed from my garden in these forced-treaty lands, an onion field once, a portage between two rivers
a reciprocity for her words that seeded me, collaterally,
her poetry an eternal spring watering my thoughts and words
