SILVER
Hot sun bounces off our garish mirrored
pushcarts staged on thick commuter roads
where 9-to-5-ers buzzing by can ogle us,
the not-so-youthful vending “girls”
wilting in the high-noon heat and blasts
of fulsome car exhaust. We strap ourselves
in g-string suits, suntanned buttocks
flashing down the semi-trucks and vans
that rarely pass without a hoot, a leer,
or pull-up stops in a camaraderie
of highway dirt and buns.
***
ROXANNE
Tell yourself this: If I didn’t care
to live, they’d have no hooks left
in me. If I didn’t have this nothing
left to lose, I’d lose my fear
of the nothing they hand me. Oh, yes.
We’re all this culpable, capable of being
terrible breakers of sheetrock wall.
Let’s dig, dig hard and deep. For
there lies the bud that blossoms rich
at night, outside her empty silver shell
where sea breezes carry petals
that whisper of her jasmine, petals
that speak her words. And mine.
Breathe of us, please, eat
our words as our bare flesh,
these words our juiciest,
most fragrant wares.
Read more of this in Ensemble Anthology no. 1
