from archer avenue

the vanishing hitchhiker: a study

You see, the limbs are accidental. Riddled by vagueness and blue-checked aprons. Her back arcs against the seat and the sweet black mouth of the soprano opens and opens again. The myth delineates her leavings and arrivings. The dirty books hidden beneath her bed, her lips red-dark and unruly. When you inquire after her address, she offers a taxonomy of saints. Spreads her thighs and shows you her phobias. The creeper vine at her throat won’t let her sing anymore, but she’ll gesture erratically. Offer assorted sundries, hotel soap and chewing gum. Her eyes like lemon cake behind the glass. Sugared and untouched.


last call

In the parking lot, all
the dancers are lovely
and drunk. Symmetrical.

Kissing in the blue dark.
A girl pins a tiger lily
to her shoulder, itches

beneath silk. Comes
closest with the boy
who still smells of his mother's

laundry soap. Still opens
his mouth to her like a door.
When the yellow of her dress

singes against the spotlight;
when she heaves into the
hydrangeas, he still loves her.

Everything glittered
and moving through violet.

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