| *loolaville _poetry | |||||
| Today Today is full of rain pounding down on the pavement from silent skies the color of dirty pearls. A man runs dodging the drops of water like a wet rat and holds a newspaper with war headlines over his head, feeling a sense of control with the sheets of damp paper shielding him. Trees bend and shake, cows lean into each other's sides for warmth, and the air carries currents interrupting conversations between sons and mothers. Inside a coffee shop a poet writes with otherwise fidgeting hands, stopping briefly to strike a match and light a cigarette, while a woman lies under a quilt in her bed turning the pages of a novel as the clock on her nightstand ticks softly. A baby cries at her mother because her tiny teeth are pushing and persuading their way through young, pink tissue. On the side of the road large bubbles form on black puddles and float soft and still until they vibrate with the sound of horns from a series of cars rolling by full of passengers on their way to a wedding reception. They pass a young couple walking on the sidewalk, staring at their bright white tennis shoes in between nervous glances as they learn a little bit more about one another. Behind them an old man and woman walk down the alley, silver hair shining above long jackets, his slick and black, hers longer and thickly pink. They utter a few words and then their conversation ceases and the sound of their boots clicking on the gravel resumes in their heads. They pass the post office, black inside where workers stuffed and sorted mail all day long, perhaps trembling even in Washington, fearing dusty powder slipping from creases and openings bringing the murder of self-righteous cowards. A woman screams in pain at the hospital as her first child passes from her insides to bright light and elsewhere mourners whisper good byes to a grave as a loved one passes to another kind of light. Who do we envy more; the child who is unaware of time or the person who was released from time? We must envy ourselves; the bodies of the middle, the cells in commotion at present, the carriers of today. |
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