And I thought only characters in film alternated between
laughter and tears in the shower when it thundered.
When it was my turn to cry, I bent my head
and closed my eyes and the colors were a diaspora.
I spent a lot of time deciphering twigs from worms.
My horoscope says many Leos will die today. Another horoscope
says strut your stuff. That a whole generation
won’t know the sound of a rotary dial in their ear.
I swallow and think of who you last loved; bent over the way I am
I bend my head to take her into me. You will experience a Disintegration.
If there is anything to be known about obsession,
it is to say by staring, I could take her into me.
I’ve stared at someone’s name for that long,
the tears decrescendo, sunset shampooed and alive.
Mondrian doll faces in the grime of the window, Botticelli shoulders
mermaids and anime girls with pearl earrings.
It’s 10:36: I was born at this time. You will
laugh as the thunder comes. Your mind will wring you dry.
- Jessica Scicchitano (first published in Columbia Journal)