1.
There is a garden
where sweet seeds snuggle
and rain falls like a swooning lover
into the earth.
There was a seed
that under the perfect circumstances
would one day rouse from its slumber
to become the rarest,
most pointlessly stunning
bloom of wist and aerie.
One day
the sky was an abacus,
the sun in strained balance
with the clouds, with dust in the air,
worms self-germinating beneath.
And the seed felt compelled to grow.
That day the garden
was a page ripped haphazardly
from a fairytale.
The other blossoms
wilted, turned away,
and donned burlap.
By nightfall,
the new, bright flower
had already ashed over.
2.
Last week, I wrote our names in the A train very tiny, but in Sharpie. I thought as I wrote it that one day someone would find it, but by then I might not know you anymore. Que sera, sera.
3.
if i ever build a house
i want walls
of pine.
someone told me pine is a softwood.
oak is stronger.
i should use oak instead.
maybe pine for the kitchen table.
but oak trees are never full
in the winter months.
they are dead.
they are old people’s hands
pleading to the heavens:
more time!
pine trees are evergreens.
i want pine walls.
pine is a hardwood.
pines are green every day.
no matter what.
4.
The fairytale book
will have that page ripped out forever,
all because of that
stupid, magical, dead seed.
5.
I didn’t think I cared about the names. But I walked through the A train the next day and couldn’t find us. Then I remembered there’s more than one A train.
6.
there was a thunderstorm last night.
lots of pine trees fell over
on top of each other
and through people’s windows.
it made me angry to think
that such a hardwood
would not stand up to
a little wind and water.
might as well be deciduous
with a will that thin.
someone told me
the southern live oak
is an evergreen.
if i ever build a house
i want walls
of southern live oak.
7.
For only two bucks I spent the day riding trains with my sharpie under central park, new dramatists, sin sin. I tried not to waste time. I’d get on, write our names, and next stop get off. It was hours before I saw us five trains in a row and decided to go home.
Now, every “one day” we’ll race together like a forest fire beneath our restless city. Forever. No matter what.
