What if We Kiss in the North Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone?
We were trying to make our way back / To the subway before sunset.
She said thanks for being a fan
And may God bless you, as we wandered
With a taste of rust in our mouths.
Maddie Tonsil (The Bluegrass Singer)
Sent me a private message that Friday
Before the festival, heart on her hand,
A cold pillow soon to fall on the floor
Of her tour bus somewhere in Colorado.
I said I feel honored, Maddie.
Thanks for taking the time to say hi.
We were trying to make our way back
To the subway before sunset.
Warehouses groaned as we passed by,
Their eyes the eyes of Malaysian immigrants
Riding on black and yellow striped forklifts,
Their jaws broken pocket sleepwalkers
Coveting crystal pipes away from the sun.
She said how old are you, hun?
What’s your name?
How long have you been single?
As we ran into the same tire shop
For the third time since we cut our losses.
I can’t help but wanting to know
More about you, what makes you smile.
I’m looking for someone to understand me
Someone who can take me as I am.
We all deserve to be accepted, I said,
As we turned around the corner
Of a wholesale Chinese imports store
Selling soap and life-scale anime figures.
Google Maps sent us to a dead end.
Construction blocked our path completely.
Orange flags and banners winding
Outlined the broken earth before us,
A long trench like the trail of a sand worm
Longing for the return to a natural origin.
I’m not always here, she said,
Why don’t you give me your number
So we can get to know each other better?
The streets were heaving in desolation
Like a severed stomach by the road,
The smiles on the crude cartoons,
Angels of fever borne anatomies,
Plastered on graffiti infected walls
Grew sharper as they drank up streetlights,
A lamia lost her skeleton to evaporation,
A child woke up in an ocean of lost ears,
And the Virgin Mary’s perfect teeth
And the lead and asbestos in her blood
Were visible behind cellophane lips.
I would rather not, I said.
If your intentions are genuine,
If you don’t mind being patient,
If it can ever attain any meaning,
Then I’m sure trust will come naturally.
My battery is dying, and I must go,
Goodbye for now and take care.
I am a local poet in the Dallas Metroplex. I enjoy open mics and dark beers. By day I work as a Medical Interpreter. I have been lucky to be published here and there in VoiceMail Poems and Thimble Magazine. I used to contribute to the now extinct Vaporwave magazine, Private Suite.
