Walking Down to the Pier - Michelle Walsh

heat spilling through the invisible ash still hanging in the air down in the
financial district where two towers used to stand in that space between
money and the pier.

where i take off my shoes and carry them across the lawn and my bare feet carry me through the moist, cool green of a new york city reborn.

the grass tattoos it's little lines into my thighs and i roll my spine up,
walk down to the pier. watch tourists line up drinking coca-cola and beer, cooing and oohing and ahhing at the skyline and the byline underneath that reads "used to be here."

the heat pours down into my skull, down my neck, shoulders, chest and falls off somewhere between 4th street and sunset. there's a hard-to-detect static in the air when the sun starts to set at the end of a particularly beautiful day. the smell of static like when your sweater shoots off sparks in the winter or

your

hair

flys up

and sticks to the air.

it's the vague smell of electricity. it makes me wonder about sunrises,
sunsets and days so wonderful you could choke on their memory. i walk home in comfortable shoes. the kind that can stay all day and never blister your feet. pieces of the street stuck to their soles. stuck to my soul. i am spinning through these days like a spider on high-speed and every tiny crack in the sidewalk makes me smile and every glance from a stranger makes me feel naive.

Home

shoulders rounded
like the solid-soft of cotton
and I am moving through your room
like a double exposure photo
as our history moves over me.
my face transposed on your life
your life transformed on my fingers.
i am holding your image like
the bar on a carnival ride
knuckle-white and smile-pink
i am holding your laugh in my hands
as the ride takes me upside down.
i see you pass by softly
low and quiet
mirage of yourself.
i am waiting for the coffee to get hot again
i am removing our favorite cups from the cabinet
i am pacing without moving.
you take my thoughts into your hands
move them softly into your wrists
and kiss me so lightly that only
the moisture makes it real.

Michelle Walsh is a New York City writer and activist who has been published in many online and print publications including Adbusters, Above Underground and Soma Lit review. Right now she is bringing her poetry into the spoken-word forum.

Email: [email protected]     Website: http://www.poisonedpunchbowl.com
 

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