-welcome to gravity-

by doreen peri

Posted to Action Poetry on 2001-08-27 19:28:00

-welcome to gravity-

there’s an alley in the city –
lights dance-flashing
in between
off a dulled sky
and mercury’s ablaze
with the sear of
hell-bent-on-release –
and on that monday when
she discovered the grey stone building
on the edge of lost, looking at
doors marked enter
there was no choice but to
rise from the wood slat bench
cemented in concrete
and walk in,

slowly –
eyes all around –

sit down on a cold aluminum stool
and order an iced stiff drink
with a slice
of negative notions
mixed in a blender with numb.

and with just the first sip,
how would she know that
some slick cool magnet of leather
in a soft blue fade of jeans,
mustache trimmed ’round
a pipestem meshed with
the scent of cherries
would, like a cobra,
entrench, surround,
enwrap ’round
the sphere of her,

lean from one side
of nowhere toward the
edge of an edge of
who knows

and say,
so what do you do?

while eyes trailed from
four-inch heels up calves,
knees, flexed thighs
to the hem of her,
skirting the issue.

but monday happened and so she had
no choice but to answer,
i write poetry and short stories,
deliberately avoiding
the deep brown burn of irises
through a hole in her soul
while drinking in his face,
all the time washed over
with yearn
as the glib of
what’s-this-all-about
came through.

what? on purpose?
he laughed,
eyes smiling and the
corners of his mouth
in a grin –

but all she heard was the silent
loudness of deaf in her own ears,
ignoring the humor,
too frozen from yesterday’s stench
of nine and a half years of disregard
that her mind bled from
the corners of hazel
in the form of
rain on cheeks.

and so it was 2AM, ready to
pick ’em up, put ’em down,
time for the band to break down
and a voice echoed off glasses hung
for viewing –

“Break up your rolls of coins,”
it ordered to minimum wage staff,
obviously management ready to bolt locks,
send the crowds to highways toward
whatever prisons were waiting,
“and don’t forget that
all my money has to be
bills straight up,
same direction,
so pay attention
please, pay attention!”

and feeling the walls close up,
she quickly said to
the dream of denim,
You don’t even know me!
so, tell me, what do you
do on purpose?

Reconstruction, he answered,

and as he spoke, the glare
rose off the edge of illusion,
but then she had to turn her head
for a moment, adjust her heart
only to look back
noticing him pretending to talk
to a very drunk woman, overly bleached,
decked in torn nylons
and a brushed-off velvet skirt,
hearing the echo of

an empty,
so what do you do?

and maybe it was because
the houselights were up,
but he felt her heat
hitting hard in the nape of his neck,
quickly left the waste-of-time
in her own squalor

turned back to her,
his memory not yet formed,

and mentioned his poetry
and the work of art
he was creating
in a studio
within a
minimal
space of time

and his eyes shone
some kind of grand desire
like it meant something
in some small but very significant way
and then she spoke bluntly,

i thought you wondered what for?

yes, that’s true, he stated,
sincerity more apparent
than Birth,
but that was two chairs down
and he laughed again
but she missed it,

and so she focused on him,
stared through glass eyes
reflected, picked up her worn jean jacket
with holes where the pockets used to be,
tossed three loose dollar bills
and package of ultra-mild cigarettes
in her bag

and spoke slowly,

one day someone will
make you their verse
but until then, i do hope
i’m helping
and not turning
something of this magnitude
into nothing but jumbled words,
meaningless to no-one
but you or I,
because, you see,
this is my time for peace,
and no time for wallowing in
a distant man’s loop around
a horseshoe bar, and yes,
i sit, i write, i dream –
that’s what i do.

and he smiled at her
from the depth of snow
thawing from mountains
long abandoned
and said,

i know. i know.
and here we are both pulled in.
here you can dance eat drink sleep me
and i’ll rise to you so give me your hand,
let’s walk outside on the deck
because

this is gravity and welcome to it.

and she took one look inside
the alley of the brown grey
shine of heaven,
eyelids half closed with succumb,
and barstools disappeared,
rising up
through fans
of exhaust
through ceilings

and the earth of him
sucked her in

while lights dance-flashed
off the sky
of mercury’s blaze and
the sear of a benched woman
entered a door
while souls melded
smiling.

(c) doreenperiallrightsreserved