Soft Graffiti

Tight as Conch Shells

his body folded inward as he bent, like a spider in a flame.
she could see the ghost tracks on his white fish belly
where the skin would stretch if he grew up to be a stout man.
his hands were mottled indigo from the ink of his jeans
only washed after the first year. his thighs were the same color
and she remembered the childlike oval of flesh smooth,
hairless, and high up where his junk rubbed as he skated.
he didn’t like to be reminded of that spot, brushed her hand away.

he was putting out the fire the cherry had started. her fault
and she watched silently, unhelpfully. she liked the
musty, smoldering smell. the town had banned burning
the leaves, said it was a health risk and you had to bag instead.
the ground was still damp and the fire didn’t go
anywhere though he kept mumbling and batting at it like a cat,
she thought. he had a certain way of shutting his eyes
and elongating, his spine popping like an Old West gunfight.

the sun was fuzzed behind thin clouds that didn’t look
like anything recognizable except clouds. the fire was out,
he felt sure and leaned back to relight the nub of weed. it was
a production, she gave him one of her barrettes to pinch the end
and her hair fell in a graceless clump, sticking to her forehead.
she watched him suck and burn his lip. she liked his wince,
the way his eyes snaked at the corners and she saw him old again.
he tongued his lip, hurt. there was hope. he could be a silver fox.

Together in Great Numbers

Everyone forgot how to ride the subway over the weekend. It only took three warm days and all the knots slackening in our shoulders as our bodies expanded into this newfound space. 

Until then I had thought each book spoke of things, human or divine, that lie outside of books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they speak among themselves. In light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was the place of a long, centuries old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another. A living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or been their conveyers.

• Umberto Eco, The Name Of The Rose

Overheard

A young boy at a restaurant yells out, ” I like guns!” His grandmother scolds, “We don’t like guns. Guns hurt people.” The boy looks over, “But guns give water to the flowers.”

Subway Spider

Cream and yellow, 

with eight crabbed legs like 

some monstrous molar swinging

into the Canal St. Station