I’m in Orlando, the magic kingdom of every thing.
Magic tricks God out of taking what can’t be remembered
As boredom’s least expected twin sister. Please read
While listening to Madame Gahndi’s “Yellow Sea.”
The magician reveals a piece of you, you didn’t know was there.
One of the most beautiful tricks of fall? Late blooming
Blue-eyed grass. The “Yellow Sea” is three minutes and forty-one
Seconds long; this poem will take about three minutes and forty-one
Seconds to read. My bus ride to the Hotel Coronado
Has come to an end. Just a few days ago, Bay and I were driving
Through a eucalyptus forest.
Eucalyptus. And petrichor.
On our last walk past the edge of the neighborhood,
Bay was telling me about the day without Mr. B,
The day the substitute didn’t get anything done.
Bay said, “Lindsey’s dads are the class moms. They helped.
Ritee pushed Leonid. Soo ate Malik’s cookie. Ishmael
And Prakash hid Ali’s homework. Elham kissed Rashad.
Alvarez and Quyaan killed Alvey, the albino praying mantis,
Our class pet. Zeus’ moms handed out not-good cupcakes.”
I noticed a man patching his fence. I said, I thought, in jest,
“Hey, you have a hole in your fence,” intending to strike up
A conversation. The sword swallows a roll of dimes.
We hear, “What an asshole. What the hell is your problem.
Who the hell do you think you are.” Better fences?
He walked after us. I walked back towards him,
Wanting to apologize
And to confront him.
A pink-eyed rabbit juggles a dozen top hats.
Half an assistant glues a volunteer to heather.
A fish picks the lock. If a curtain hypnotized the pulley
Then the clouds below would have no sky beneath them.
Four linked doves pull a handkerchief over the guillotine.
The just finished storm leaks across the sidewalk. The campus
Trees dab the palette of petrichor varietals. Petrichor.
A head has feet for ears until vice has a last drink
Of absinthe. A wand pours bottle after bottle
Into a pile of rope. The levitating hourglass takes a bow, signs
Autographs in cursive repeating the same expression,
“You wear me out, you wear me out, you wear me out.”
From the back of the audience to the street. I am burning alive
Inside an apple missed by an arrow shot from the eyes
Of John’s horse. The rope next to the chain link fence climbs
Aboard. I swallowed a pack of razor blades. Here’s yours.
We have learned to love the lively impact of sulfur when we cross
The San Mateo Bridge. Sulfur. As I write this in the Coronado hotel
In Orlando I imagine Bay at home eating pizza at the counter,
The yeastiness slick in the cool air. (A few hours after writing this
I learn he was eating spaghetti & meatballs.).
The TV is on; the puppy monkey baby
Mountain Dew commercial has him laughing.
A childhood friend’s friend’s card is the garden
Shovel of hearts. Inside the ear of corn a finch found
A stack of white gloves — all left hands.
Who is the keynote speaker? Michelle Obama.
Touch the mark’s hand: on the peak
Of the mountain ridge of one range of your fingerprint
There is a moment happening. A sleight of hand, shown, given,
Believed, burned away. Now you feel the low tide
That exposes the sandbar and the muddy shoals.
Taskrabbit your dirty laundry. You won’t miss it if you blink.
The ball tells the shill the right card lost its mind to the middle cup.
Close your eyes, think of a pony, any pony. Blue-eyed grass
Will return. A bullet drops a set of false teeth from the floor
Of an invisible cabinet. He turned the corner
And did not let me look him in the eye.
