October - Poem 11
Riding on the Subway Late at Night with Murakami / Anna Ojascastro Guzon
You file yourself away between the brown slats of a wild mushroom cap and relax in the dark.
The deprivation of your senses is a relief until you see yourself in a glass of iced Cutty Sark.
You wonder, “What am I doing at the bottom of this well with a baseball bat in one hand and in the other, a fork?”
The air is a cold sweat, which is healthy for a fungus, but you start to feel sick, a memory stopped by a cork.
“Where is the boy in the sheep-suit? This pixilation seems familiar.” A ride to Shinjuku is out of the question for the girl with the blue birthmark.
Elvis Presley Boulevard / Kathryn Johnson
We were riding with the King—
a framed photo of Elvis that I found
at The World’s Largest Indoor Flea Market.
A bargain at $5 and as much a delight
as the spur-of-the-moment stay
in Horse Cave, Kentucky, where we found
a restaurant-used-book-store,
enjoyed Turkey Hot Shot Platters,
and took in a community
theater production of Death of a Salesman.
I can’t make this up. Just like I can’t reproduce
the effervescent sensation of
being 24 and on the road.
It gilded every turn with possibility.
We didn’t party like it was 1999.
We partied because it was 1999.
We were the perfect age
for an adventure that took us
on an unironic pilgrimage
from the Ohio Valley to the Mid-South.
A trip that came with a ready-made anthem.
We were going to Graceland, after all.
Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee.
My traveling companions were a friend and
the anticipation of those white pillars
and the glorious Jungle Room.
We wore butterflies in our hair and
giddily savored hot and ready delights
at the Krispy Creme. A real celebration
of our youth. So, when I found myself
on a backboard in a Southern Methodist
emergency room, I was grateful to
the tired doctor who didn’t smirk when
I explained that it wasn’t windshield glass
covering me, but body glitter.
The car was a total loss, but
my Flea Market Elvis was unscathed and,
like the little scar on my wrist,
served as a reminder of the adventure and
the young women we were. We were girls, really,
who, like the millennium, were on the cusp of
becoming something new.
For Margaret on an Autumn Afternoon / Kimberly McElhatten
In a yellow tutu whirled like an iris,
With your lips kissing bubbles to the wind—
In them, I see your face and mine for half a second
before they burst into a thousand rainbows
and fall to the grass.
Up!
Up!
Up!
Again, Nona—
The way you inflect the end, like an
hourglass and ampersand.
