Amy Soricelli
Rescue MeThere are dogs on the sidewalk.
Their coats on magazines asleep against headlines, their paws curled underneath faces, closed up, hidden. I heard the homeless girl takes a train from Syosset and covers herself with dirt somewhere in Queens. I wonder what people think when they watch her scratch herself or un-tuck her plaid Abercrombie shirt from her Old Navy Jeans. I wonder if they picture dirt under her fingernails, mad grabby hands in subway tunnels, hollow screams for help-- or her last summer-camp with that horse named Storm, dancing fairies rising up from the hot-dog campfire. I heard those dogs are rented. Costs $25 for the day, and with enough Benadryl in their water bowls, they can sleep on a subway grate or in the biting cold. People donate to girls with dogs: storybook lives rescued from mountains, deep snow drifts, a run from a hairy monster. The quarters drop like hope, or rain. One tinny sound against another. ColorblindWe see what we see from the eyes that we are.
Cloudy eyelashes blinking under small pellets of belief. Fear like thin meat captured between safe slices of bread - us hiding under school desks bias written in ink across our faces. We can't snap a picture of hate it can't hold its liquor. It staggers down the stairs cursing in tongues. It sees us the next morning shame-walking in yesterday's clothes regret held together like a zipper. I learned about eyes as they traveled across me staggering lopsided fumbling in the dark like a bad date; sliding its prejudice next to me on the train - its paper swung open over holy knees lost edgy souls. They sleep across the edge of a knife. See White. See Black. See Nothing. If I walk through the rooms of us each painted corner an empty chair- silhouettes shrouded over in grocery store plastic. Our shadows outlined with police tape peel off without effort. That is what these eyes see I am the white friend you are the black friend watch us disappear. We feel what we feel from the pulse of our heart. Slow moving knuckles beating quietly across our chests. We can love a handful of people deeply - others found on the edges of the very place we leave. We have all tasted slammed door noises chairs sliding across the hall. Bad neighborhood garbage cans lonely cries sirens in the night. Blind alleys lost dogs manhole covers slipping up cars Johnny pumps aimed like rain. We are the sprays of dusty water we hide from. The dirt deep under our nails. Taught to hate one other - We are the eyes under our skins. Name CallingPeople call for God at the bottom of the day.
The hollow tube of despair the restless wait. Bad news brings God - his name repeated like worry beads orderly- familiar. People hold hands around the idea of Him each calling Him different things dressed loosely wrapped tight in black. They expect Him to hear them through the boundless sirens - rain sheets down the side of the road. God takes the front seat on the long trip - riding shotgun holding the map. God is in the steamy cloud of lust parading itself in red lips - he is called for before/after some great act of love. His name is in the soft leftovers that should or should not be there. God is what they show you in the palm of your hand. His name forms bubbles in the close shoulders of church mornings. His name is on the wafer you take - on the pages hidden beneath your knees. People fall to the ground for God. They expect to see him as they struggle across the wide open space of the sky. He is the small covering on the top of your head the rites of boy to man. He is the last crumbs down the drain - the rush through the station waving the final notes of love. People look for God at the bottom of a glass - at the edge of the last soft kiss. God sits on the seat you missed on the plane that went down. God looks up. He is at the deep end of the lake with willow trees between the rocks the lost turtle - friendship seared through absence. He is the heart growing fonder. The Bronx/1963The Bronx is cement.
Loud, lost art-deco lobby/hidden staircase; overhead planes flying too low down the back of your neck. The Bronx is a window painted shut. Stained streets littered-up, bags on the side of the road. The Bronx is an air-raid drill in the middle of class. You stand single-file up against the wall so the bomb, when it comes, could roll its way down beside you. You stand clear like a shadow. The Bronx is curled under your desk covering your head from theBlacks/theRussians/theCubans/thePuertoRicans. The Bronx is a music teacher in a dark suit who hands out pennies at Christmas. He doesn't date your mother but he should. The President died in my Bronx classroom filling up the afternoon to The Pledge of Allegiance. Early dismissal flowing down the rest of the year like a black cloud. The Bronx is a long block with tree names – bicycles filled with dead air. German shepherd dogs – their chains rolled tight against bad boy fists. It is crossed streets- Johnny- pumps high against passing cars It is the deep drip of summer. The Bronx is needles in apples on Halloween. Sulky neighbors with sharp fang teeth; dead pigeons in rainbow-oil puddles around and around lost, like in a drain. It is gum stuck to the end of your shoes. The Bronx is the end of your shoes. ♢ |
LingeringsYou left your eyes on my mirror in the hall.
Maybe you forgot to take them, you know, when you left. They follow us sometimes as we leave the room or enter it. We stare, as if in a contest, you and I, as I get myself out the door. You see me there, you know, that part of you. Your touch is hanging around on my couch, by that pillow, you know, the one from that woman who sewed while you drank wine. It folds now, that pillow, divides into itself all lumpy and clayish, molding one by one into who we are right then, In case you're missing your soul, it's hanging around your bookcase keeping company with Henry James, all dusty and uneven, you know, like a Summer Afternoon, Summer Afternoon. It mingles at times by the radio or gets tangled by the cat like a kite in a tree. Your voice is saved on my phone. I should take it and hide it somewhere. Can I store it in my head and will it stay? I believe the things you've told me in wordless words and nothing said. The sky is still on top, I can see it you know, the cloudless clouds all real and not, misty, fresh, always there. Final Arrangements
~for my mother
I breathed-in the lines of your face, Left drops of who you were on the arm of the chair, wrapped my fingers around unspoken, hushed, half-whispered words—tumbled. Tripped-up, fallen. I stared down your scars - your hollow eyes, guilty that they made me squirm. Small round math lines /tunnels, knives. I know blood was pushed in a mad dash. They spun your stuff around tricking it into clean. But nothing was new on you. Soon you would be all that's left of nothing. Short hair in spiked-up gray, snipped slick down at the sides so you could be less sick in a smaller space. You swallowed up those voiceless screams-- brave rock-climber folded into last year's size. I was screaming for you and you just wanted to live. You asked for nail polish in deep blues-- velvet blues you called them. You wanted to face the next stretch of your journey with your nails shaped into neat half moons. You cupped your hands around the tea cup sipping it like you had all the time in the world. But you were already gone by then. I was just borrowing you. Ellipsis...We run away now
from this world. We pack our black thoughts into suitcases - lock them tight - turn around three times then spit. There is not enough salt over shoulders or red ribbons fastened tight over cribs and sick beds. If we stuffed coins into our socks - curled our toes deep around them - or pulled out a deck of cards - our eyes would bleed from the weight of lost hope. Fear would part our eyelashes with each joker or ace. We can't wave away the ugly truth; swat it away like a lazy summer fly. We kick our sorrow down the street/a dented can of angry shout-y noise. We carry our burdens in our open hearts - marbles into words and handfuls of rain. Broken Things in SunlightWicked machinery; not big like tractors
but smaller steely parts sitting in back yards near woody swing-sets dried-up pools. She lived near a family who had chickens like pets- they would battle in the middle of the night – call up to her window; whistle like she was a hooker. One long chicken sound. She danced by the open window sometimes the radio music on low she would sway her hips; look down on the broken machinery- crap she would think. Crap this is ugly. Her friends had snow blowers/ lawn mowers garden people watching over their plants – the sun would shine its side-ways smile through their bumped-up cross their hearts hope to die promises. She climbed on top of anything bouncing car-lot playgrounds thinking she could fly to God straight up. Truth stuck to her like fly paper. Broken bicycle wheels on chains dead on her burned-down street corner. Sooty lamp posts she keeps seeing the shadow dance of "can't sleep" She looks out her window straight down to the shopping carts tipped to the side; pooling up rain water slippery through its bars. Almost in the bright sun it could look like a statue or something rich. She wants to pray to it. Those Things That Just AreIn a field of Octobers the deep sun wrestles with blank spots of sky -
it warms the very tips of our fingers and shuts our eyes against the heat. We can squeeze the last light out of any day and nestle it close in the palm of our hands. And it is with the single strands of friendship - those delicate threads that gather us together that keep us strong if strong is needed. Between our pages the notes on doors and scribbled along the edge of the air we whisper our deepest secrets in code with blinks of an eye. Or sounds between the sounds. There are place-settings and jumbled tightrope tricks of the wrist and we can sit anywhere and there is room. |