[blackout in ‘07]
how strange my neighbors are
when darkness is prescribed to them
like friendly lobotomies. a blackout and i’m sitting
on the backrest of a brown couch
denting with the weight of me and the municipal
red bowl housed between my thighs. cyanide stones roll right
against our inner cheeks. grandpa spits
and digs around in my lap for new fruit
as i strain my neck to see outside
to see Laura.
Laura is allergic to drupes, and i cringe
at the thought of her
smelling their sweetness on my breath. her beltless
father shoo from my house, the front door a cathedral confessional:
hold my hand this claw hoof humane, he says, but
Laura is deaf
to his war sounds tonight. i study the nuclear
families in the midnight of the living
room.
i am limestone and can’t move—the discolored cushions and i conjoined twins
with no plans for surgery. Laura escapes
heat, feet skipping over feet, staining her soles
in the bruised stars of precious asphalt. i am fine
with paralysis.
bitters, onion skins, scents returning to my scrunching nose.
grandpa leans over me, his palm a thermostat, flat to the window
checking the temperature. his hand is cold and
solid against my cheek. the ache for Laura is feverous, one explored
only in Circadian rhythm, only in shadowed
blackout.
grandma stole the cherries for me, and i wonder why:
why the unlawful gesture that
she hates me? she made me
a walking repellent— i Laura’s living,
breathing anaphylactic shock.
when august is 9 o’clock, the purgatorial street
hears the final whispers of sneakers and slippers and bare feet
tracking in with them a heat you can reach out, touch,
slice for keeps. i am the image
of driftwood in my stare at still
wings of a broken ceiling fan. i pray in lucid dreaming
for sound, a static loud enough to mask
the gagging of dry-heaves
yielding whole stone fruits
hear them plop! in toilet water.
i won’t stop
trying to flush her father my family away,
down a sewer pipeline
a telephone line to her room
the purged cherries a love letter:
L—
still haven’t found a way to remove
the veil
our families hung in solidarity. they are anti-us.
i know you’re hurting.
i’m sorry.
Taylor Nicole S. is a poetry writer born and raised in Queens, New York. A writing and English Literature tutor at St. Joseph’s University. At this same university, Taylor earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature and Sociology, and is currently a first-year graduate student at The Writer’s Foundry studying poetry