transportation

1

on an Arabian she took off here in the final hour

that's alright I thought to myself looking up,
my father, he left a small pile of nails on the porch chair and I thought
it was so that the wild cat wouldn't sit there in the hot afternoons and guard the house
instead now he has three security cameras hooked up, I'm hooked up w/ a bottle here
and the Japanese rhumba

on an Arabian she took her time
it had gotten late across the entire parking lot

Shirin from Sudan who spoke French, walked with me to
Rite Aid several blocks up
Old Lancaster Rd. for cigarettes,
she asked if there were any French in the city
              and hell if I know

I know that picking special blends
won't help you quit at all,
right, professor?

to whom tobacco
in that instant,
when I lit up the room, is a pleasure.


2

With a scarab bisque she took too few sips
crab it may have been, rings that are always on those fingers
bringing me to gasps

the small stone stuck in the throat of the fish I had saved
329 E. Louden, telephone company man at the door of my grandmother's
he was supposed to be in west Louden, the other side of the blvd

my sister held her babe while my uncle and I sought out new fish
from South America, an albino Oscar perhaps
certainly two dark ones that never mated
that grew as large as my palms
and had died in a wok


3.

now it's Chelsea, she used to run around me
and by me, the red brick potter up the old street
by the concrete, up the rec field, too large a cemetery
play day, Feltonville primary, fluorescent five panels,
inflatable bouncing room, glue and glittered namesakes

mum's the word, next to me, fatty content
stay behind the class
after class w/ the teach

who had black hair and brown skin
my ESOL Egyptian
that's what they called it then

ABC carpet, Easter eggs boiling
my hand hurting from sentences
but my handwriting never suffered

why I never spoke to her
what's to say anyway
want me to chase you?