Chinatown

Apparently people of the world intentionally eat frog legs.
I saw them huddled like hostages through the film of their tank.
They had eyes big as buttons and remained impossibly still,
just like the impressive fish in the tank above – only it swam upside down.
I have never seen healthy fish swim in such a fashion,
not even in the nature television channels do they appear
this way, no – they are always colorful, swimming upright and with a
healthy snap to their movements, ready to flee with speed and vigor
at the sight of a bigger and hungrier fish. But not the fish baking in the
foyer window, and not the collection of glum frogs in the tank below.
Thank goodness, while I entered the restaurant, they were busy
vacuuming the blood red carpet.

Song Of The Week

This morning while paying for a cup of coffee I saw your name on a card next to the register. Apparently, you had decided to give a particular song away. This marketing approach, although likely driven by a greater purpose, seemed preposterous to me, that you might hand away a song that meant so much to me, and perhaps even to you. And as the aproned girl scattered to prepare my order I stood devastated at the register, as one might feel as though standing at the foot of their own grave. The free songs printed as business cards so that they might pick one up and put it in their pocket for later. This too seemed preposterous to me. Your song has does not belong in someone’s pocket. It also had no place sitting next to prepackaged scones and shiny tins of chewing gum. I considered for a time, while my coffee was being prepared, taking all of the cards and eagerly stuffing them in my front pocket, as a boy might carry rocks too shiny to leave behind, for a later time where they might be better distributed like a record store or guitar shop, but I did not. I stood there knowing that days would likely pass while thirsty people, oblivious to your cards, went along their day, deep in emotional debt. This saddened me. There was a line behind me but I did not budge, not even after paying. I stood unmoved at the counter while my coffee cup filled with hot water and muddy shots of espresso, my head bent in sorrow for all the untouched cards. Just looking at the card filled my head with your voice, much like the coffee filling my paper cup, warming me from my center until I finally could be seen as a finished and attractive product. Worse only was the proximity you shared with other, less worthy musicians, and that only made me more upset. What the people really deserved was you in the coffee shop, with your blue jeans and dusty tweed coat, bending a person’s life into reflective, observable pieces with your aged voice and roughened fingertips, though I knew that such a thing would never occur. Your cards would likely sit neglected like the brittle books of small town libraries. No one will touch them in their hurry to acquire hot coffee or oatmeal, though they’re close enough to feel the breeze from hands passing money to the cashier. Despite owning the song, I picked up a card and tucked it into an empty space of my wallet, hoping to spark the interest of restless patrons behind me, wondering what in this world might be worth glancing down and giving their precious attention, what could possibly be worth holding up a thirsty line of patrons. Later that week I found the card white and furry, laying in the bottom of the wash utterly unrecognizable, and essentially useless.

Walking, Downtown Philadelphia

you don't have any plans so you decide to take off on foot.
as though it were some strange relief there is garbage tumbling everywhere.
no one looks at you or even acknowledges the space you occupy
unless they are insisting on money.
the woman who walks out of the convenience store with you
turns and asks you for change, you decline.
further down a tall dark man approaches you with an unlabeled vial of cologne
though you decline his offer midsentence in true downtown form.
you realize you could be walking with a receipt stuck beneath your shoe
yet be atop a buzzing three story shopping mall and never know it.
there are costumed men shouting their anger through a megaphone about Jesus
and the many upsets they have about His book and those who profess to read.
you continue along and decide to try a cornerstand hotdog.
you joyously enjoy it in silent disbelief.
less than one mile later you order two more and a large water.
you notice while ordering the strange accent of East coast dialect
such as a the man behind you who is asking for a cup of kwoffee.
there is a constant push of low warm air that fills your nose with piss and rot.
no one uses the crosswalks and all the honking horns sound exhausted.
hungry men fish the Schuylkill river and eagerly eat the all their muddy catches.
men and women sleep on vacant patches of grass between skyscrapers.
the city square is alive at 1am with aggressive transients and loud men playing dominoes.
you wait six minutes for your elevator to arrive and decide to let one go in the lobby.
from your ninth floor terrace you see carefully lit museums and the sleeping bellies of bigger buildings.
in your bed there is silence and you reach over only to have to search for each other
because you're not used to sleeping in a king size bed and abject darkness.

Hunger and Denial

Some of my best failed conflicts have been from poor love,
from my innermost desires to touch and taste one another.
Some resist these urges only to drift off at night bitterly consumed,
unable to let something go as simple as a nagging rejection.
But my best one comes now as I rest fat on this patio chair.
Sometime in the evening days ago a spider found my hallux
and must have happily nibbled at it with its curious spider teeth.
Yet it is all I can do right now not to take a piece of pumice
and sand my skin to the bone – it would feel so delightful.
I have already run my nail hard and slow over the bite marks but
now I resist, hoping to comfort in my ability to control the urge,
utterly denying that when the moment comes right before I fall asleep
where I feel like I’m going to fall – the thought of those little bites
will devour me.