CITY COLLEGE STUDENTS

 

 

ODE TO YOUR CITY AND MINE

I unfold your contradictions like
a delicate newspaper body
I watch as your thick steel needles pierce the sky
watch your thin metal needles kiss the ground
I throw myself to your subways
let my body float between the lines.

// living on the boulevard our hands are sticky and covered in gravel, scootering
till we get too scared of the graveyard and feel shadows pressing at our feet, till
papa come home its 7, 7 to take papa home, sounds of the tracks like a doorbell, 7
to take mama and me downtown and uptown, sounds of the tracks like an airplane
jet, downtown to take me to my favorite, flashing lights and clamoring crowds on
42nd, heart full of neon lights and belly full of soft serve, uptown to take me to the
doctor's, he says i better come back soon so i come back home, back to my legos,
my legos creating my life, my life created by the beating of the 7 as it comes back
home, the buzz of the boulevard as we race idly across its gigantic strip but never
get too close, the hum of the city of dreams. //

I imagine a life with every passerby
whatever could have been
I hustle past your sidewalk forts
and ragged blankets on the floor
I admire your shiny loafer buckles
and smooth black blazers.

// my mama always wanted peace and quiet, a big backyard, the only noise we
heard would be that of the crickets and us, me, i found peace and quiet in the
slivers of the hustle, i found peace and quiet in the big orange crosswalk hand
reminding me to breathe, found it in the split second when trains pass by each
other, in the click of the coins at the laundromat, in the steam of papa's coffee at
the bodega, in the air that hit me as i scootered, in the jolt of a nearby pigeon, in
the smell of the books at the public library, in the glazed over floors of my school,
in the sizzle of the local chicken shop, in the sterility of the doctor's waiting room,
in the overpour of april rains, in the walk next to the graveyard, in the little nooks
and crannies nobody bothers to look. //

I take each step loudly,
hoping I can make a wave.
I look you in the eye
this time I'm not looking away.
I open my eyes to this city
mind and everybody's all at once.

// i will always miss the boulevard, always think about what could've been if every
night could've ended with the whisper of the 7 in my ear, if every morning i could
feel the skay body of the train car pressing against my back, i am nowhere near the
boulevard now, i am nowhere near my boulevard now, near the place that knew me
for years, near my home, New York City, youd'll always be home. //

 

Aieshah Ashter

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OUR MOTHER

Smiling with her broken spine as
we skipped along the cracks of
suburban cement sidewalks.
Her sunlit knuckles and craters
down the sides of her hips.
"Where we once collided,"
she whispered into our three
soft rosy ears. "Took three chunks
of my flesh, bones, my eyes."

We glued her googly eyes to
preschool posters on crispy blue
construction paper. They swung
with each of our steps. Danced
circles around your juvenile delirium.
We hung them on the fridge with
bottle cap magnets and alphabet soup.

But jam coated pinkie fingers
reaching for bottles of thick milk
knocked three pairs of googly eyes
from the fridge. They fell to the floor,
catching sight of thirty toes, dancing.
to the world beyond what is known
in the craters of our mother's hips.

 

Violet Doolittle

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EVERYTHING IS RISK

I want the male cardinal—
Jesus. I'm tired of my own blood,
did you see that worm?

It has no arms, its tiny nobs pierce
an eel view of the familiar.

It's as if winter took
thinning shears

dismantling the surface.
Across the lake, fractals

read:
lack of sleep leads to ideation.

I see limbs on the couch
of a different daylight.

The body's beggar becomes
a stop in the mirror.

The tapestry never did float.
Yet last time rarity did

a backbend in your favor
was in trunks without desire.

You wonder why what isn't parasitic
still grows with a fizz and a pop.

How many frogs did you pass dead?
The baby snakes ask I stop count

before the vertigo loses its head. Maybe it's
propylene glycol. Maybe it's

non-organic. Maybe it was before
when the aether knew and was

playing life. It's outrageous
for me to think

I'd find a birdsmouth cut
in the last remaining rafter

but this is nothing like running
threads through matching faucets

in the face of duality,
mostly I struggle—

brain spots
beckon

a pinch.

 

Jessica Duffy

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10/12

We pick The Wrong Night, Fireside, red light, karaoke
where the synthetic dalliance of musk squeezes a cough out of us.
It's okay—no really—it's better than wafts of tobacco,
long gone drunken nods and natters.
How Long Gone?
Arrhythmical floor of dancings—gone.
Barstools wrestle bottom shelf liquor—gone.
House wine convinces us you are the prairie Junegrass to our sticky cinquefoil.
Even if you hate sticky cinquefoil—your eyes—your body suggest
a mycelial promise of connection.
We could be wrong, certainly.
You could be after our last twenty dollars or
our credit card,
our shoes,
our Nokia 6130
for all we know—but still,
we get in your car.
We embrace street lights after dive bar darkness—but soon,
the lights fade. And now we know.
You are the pistol that strikes our head over and over.
You are pointed boots in our groin.
You are Pilot Peak Road next to the prairie where our knees chew the gravel.
You are the hacked down girdled cottonwood shoved back into the ground
in vertical protrusions, spit rail confusion splinters in and out
like we're out
arms out
you tie us, like a scrarecrow as our tears carve paths through Indian Paintbrush,
through Sandberg bluegrass. Our Shepard's path
through Inland saltgrass, birds chirp their salutations;
through Autumn Sneezeweed, the morning dew fulgurates as
we pass international ripples.
We pass candlelight vigils.
We pass quackgrass as they hold signs that state,
god hates western spiderwort, as if they know what god hats
as if god could hate wild flowers.
Our flower,
Our Shepard watches the sun
outline Laramie Peak.

 

Hiram Rhöm Robert

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I LIVE

I've lived with ghosts, cockroaches, and raccoons
I've lived with calico cats, dirty dogs, and an orange rabbit
I've lived with metropolitan mice, rural rats, and a possum
I've lived with substance shame, sex regret, and family guilt

I've lived with half family, stepfamily, and chosen family
I've lived with parents having hepatitis C, cancer, and depression
I've lived with a boyfriend, husband, and myself
I've lived with translated bibles, botched brochures, and bullets

I've lived with a cult, Catholicism, and paganism
I've lived with broken nails, fevers, and souls
I've lived with virtuous monsters, powerful misfits, and damned angels
I've lived with gin, vodka, and Vicodin

I've lived with alcoholics, drug addicts, and myself
I've lived with DUIs, IUDs, and EODs
I've lived with migraines, stomach ulcers, and sobriety
I've lived with a rape, break-in, and a shattered kitchen window

I've lived with punches, slaps, and a bite
I've lived with frozen pipes, hearts, and beds
I've lived with abuse, manipulation, and manifestation
I've lived with being fought over, fucked with, and forgotten

I've lived with passion, persistence, and piss
I've lived with devastation, underestimation, and exhilaration
I've lived with ancestors of colonizers, the colonized, and the lost
I've lived with green cards, citizens, and those undocumented 

I've lived with sand dunes, bright lights, and suburban flights

I've lived with self-harm, self-awareness, and self-care
I've lived with couples' therapy, group therapy, and medication
I've lived with hyper-sexuality, bisexuality, and prized virginity
I've lived with homeschool, public school, and dropping out

I've lived with beige carpet, linoleum, and pressed-wood walls
I've lived with a broken-down car, station wagon, and pickup truck
I've lived with no money, less money, and sometimes money
I've lived with patches of strawberries, clovers, and rosemary

I've lived I've lived I've lived
I have lived.         I have lived.         I have lived

 

I live

 

Kristine Esser Slentz

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PASTORAL, TUSCANY

When we booked it, we didn't know
the villa was on a farm. Didn't know
about the sheep bleats stuttering
in through every window.
I didn't want to turn down
that volume, nor all the frog songs.
You wanted stronger WiFi for all
your Zoom calls. The sheep kept roaming,
these girls had so much clover and such
high fences. So it was safe.
On our long walk alone we headed
to the edge, and when we reached the gate,
couldn't decide whether to slide it open or stay.
We flipped a quarter. We about-faced.
Let's fuck in those bushes, you said,
and before my mouth opened my body
said No. Even though you had not been
inside me for months. Instead
we tried to get closer to the sheep.
We watched them move together
towards the barn like a cloud. Our host,
Francesco, waved his whole arm
Come, come
And then he was pulling gloves up my hands,
then teaching me how to hold the machine
to suction all four teats of each ewe
in one movement. Up close
Francesco looked fifty. Grit in his smile lines.
And his sweat had that carrot stench.
I imagined every shower of his felt better
than any of mine. Yes, okay, I thought
about a life with him. I drink warm milk
while his collarless dogs figure eight
around my ankles. I know intimately each hill
and I let him fuck me on every acre
even though I didn't. Or. I wouldn't tell you
if I did. But I didn't. But what if you and I
had had sex on that land? Not last-ditch,
but for the closeness of it. Even though you
cannot stand the feel of dirt, or sand.
We walked back a gravel path Francesco
had likely spread with his fingers
like seed. I thought, if I stayed
right here I would not be happy,
but I could survive.

 

Sarah Sturgis

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IN EVER UNIVERSE & WORMHOLE

You are still my mother

& you are dead

but I will adopt apathy & pretend a starfish
feels no difference between a brined corpse
& an afternoon spent nestled within the five
crooks of your ever regenerating arms

suctioned.         safe          still

or you are an in-ground pool on Sunday in July
& I am the wasp drowning in a can of Dr. Pepper
neither of us believe is worth the calories

another time we'd have powdered sugar noses
& share leather skirts with slits to our garters
& I'd be the daughter you begged Lilith
for when God decided you had ran him dry
of prayer

somewhere I am stealing your Klonopin
& you are too fried to remember the name
you gave me

somewhere we are smoking
me my peppermint Marlboros
you those Virginia Slims you've lovingly
coined Vagina Slimes & Cancer is but
a comet fifteen kilometers wide heading
straight for the hapless heart of West Hampton
& we'll find bliss as the stream turns sea to
engulf us.

in another life we would nitpick muscles
from each others freeze dried bodies on a peak
in the Andes & you'll allow me the gamey skin
of your elbow & slivers off your left thigh
which you swear holds much more blubber
than the right & I will feed you my breasts
& it will be nothing of sacrifice as it is
nothing we will miss

our embrace remains a strangle
shame stunned & wrung by our necks
to the mirror

sanctioned          safe          still

 

somewhere in the mirror

you are cradling me

 

Rayn Page Valeau