rifles through
a Peaches LP crate
in search of the loudest

gets a ride
to the local teen
rec center

a band slams into
a raucous version
of the Cars’
“You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”

wonders how
lips can get
so shiny red

holding up
a back wall
gets her a ride
in a tan convertible

not sure
which one
she likes

the blonde or
the one
with dark curls
and blue eyes

oh never mind

soccer games
and the beginning
of linear athletics

round trip
to the Jersey Shore
and back

something always
gets lost
in translation

news of
death by drowning
in a Florida pool
decades later

next time she swims
it better be
the ocean

You burn
it to the ground.
Now you want
to worship
before a liar’s pit
of wet ashes.

Your tragic flaw
is not that you ate
dirt as a child.
It’s that you could not stand
the taste,
that it made you sick

for the smell
of melting sand
and scorched dead
man’s fingers.

In its thickness,
she hears Hokusai’s rogue
wave crash over
a ghost ship gunwale.

A world carved
into a block of wood
in reverse
does not disturb her sleep.

She remembers nothing

when she awakes.
Mops her damp forehead,
breasts, ankles. Sits up

to place bare feet
into a cold water puddle
on the concrete floor.

The window has changed
its shape. Now round
and encased in brass, it frames a view

that tells her
it’s spring. Nothing else
matters. She knows she can float.

All jokes about papayas
get told and discarded
like empty sardine cans
in a pile in an alley
after dark. Another lazy

line zigzags down
impossible piano key
painted steps. Another
restaurant closes. Parking
valets roam the sidewalks

at night without purpose.
One of them, João I think,
finds a can of spray paint
and a blank wall.

Stucco street art

is not born,
does not die,
lives beyond

its crumbling canvas and hues
fading in every kind of weather

from

Mexico City, London, Lisbon,
Prague, Lodz, Bogatá, São Paulo,
Taipei, Bristol, Santiago,
Philadelphia, Buenos Aires,
Los Angeles, Belfast, Bethlehem

to

Montreal, Dublin, Istanbul,
Cape Town, Melbourne, Paris,
Valparaiso, Porto, Moscow, Berlin,
Rio De Janeiro, Reykavik,
Havana, New York City.

found lost plucked
from a roadside
deep in pine woods
with thickened plots

one after another
they disappear
like unreliable narrators
who chase characters

from different stories
written by different authors
on different continents

they all look the same

the nearest botanical garden
lost its orangery roof lantern
in a hurricane decades ago

you can’t get there
from here where people
encased in glass throw only stones
from the ripest drupes

Three days before
spring, winter
returns. Grows a pair
of fangs. A caustic wind
blows off hats
and sweet mint
memories of Havana
in the afternoon.
And Minnesota shorts
weather last Saturday.

I will never know
the malted and unmalted
barley in pure pot still
Irish whiskey here
or back in my great
grandfather’s mother
country. I know
the taste of so many
other lachrymal flavors
I don’t feel deprived.

And a runaway
apostrophe may, or may not,
be worth unleashing a search party
to run through pubs
along the quay to find.

I know I’ve said it before.
I’ve never met a tree
I didn’t love.

A street
I didn’t want to cross.

Urban forest
I didn’t plan
to get lost in.

So many exquisite sketches
within reach,
how do I choose?

When the words dissolve,
I trust one of these branches
will hold my withered hand.

Graffiti speaks
to her in codes
she cannot translate
but knows
by heart.

She has never owned
property. Imagines
walls that talk
to everyone
who will listen.

CARS
SHE DOESN’T DRIVE THEM
DOESN’T BULLFIGHT THEM
DOESN’T LIKE TO RIDE IN THEM
¡MALDITOS COCHES!

Exposed rusty rebar
and cavernous potholes
in the Havana calles

cannot kill
her love
of the street
in all its ruined beauty—
exclaimed, whispered, silent.