Content Warning: references to drinking
1.
I come armed with a seam ripper and
The dramas of a Steller’s jay
Peeling paint back from the face of April,
Listening like a toddler while
White women talk shit over well vodka
Their smoking secrets
Push my glasses up my nose,
Skin strains against pink inside
Ballooning hot with suburban gossip
2.
I take refuge in between
A parking garage and a restaurant’s bare behind
Breathing body doubled over seagull shit and
Stacks of cardboard,
The teeth of spiteful spring threaten snow
I stand shaking in the arms of solo mercy
Until stairwell ghosts shatter my
Dumpster prayer, send me sprinting back
Into the shriek of a neon road
3.
Sammy Davis Jr. is pointing at me from
A wall in a bar on a street once haunted
The phone number of my first love hangs
Forgotten around my neck and
Time winks it’s wink from the counter
I breathe in strangers, they spill out
Around me like a toppled rice bag,
Like ribbons from a maypole