LK's Ghazal, Harrison & Kedzie
H's hair was a tangled mess. Her eyes, when the pigs escorted her
from the tavern, were swollen, waning crescent moons. When we met,
years before, at a rum-soaked Mayaguez cockfight, she was shorn,
dyed red as those clay mountains, jade lagoons
for eyes. At booking, she cries, "no more of this miserable
city!" to nobody in particular. Our November together,
on the island, was a hurricane. "And the thunder,"
she reminds me as I fumble for my money clip for bail,
"was a plane crash." The broken, hollow-chested screams of coming
down junkies breaks
unnoticeable din of computer keys, the
muffled inside-joke attempts of police. We have both been here
before. In the light. In similar capacities. In dreams
my other incarcerations were all wet stone fortresses
& Santurce, across the harbor, a sweltering tremor. We used to fuck
there, maybe 13 yrs. or so
ago. Tonight I was drinking with friends and came
upon her at random for the 1st time since. A wild ace to turn
such a fateful trick. Later, both of us drying out at dawn, over coffee
& day-old doughnuts, the motion-sick muzak
is Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine". To think
of us again.
Silent December
by Jae Ming Jue
What is it that I must remember.
The moon,
large like a lotus flower,
it's leaves drifted down
in flakes of snow that clung
briefly to our one window,
a single eye
staring
mournfully
out into the city.
Strewn across the wood floors,
the wreckage of your neon machinations,
still humming, intermittently
giving the very air, weight
of murmering heartbeats.
Danny's eyes still remained silent
as his hands read the texture
of the broken concrete obelisks
that once stood tall with neon rods
protruding like trapped fingers,
releasing my self-hate
entwined in your creations.
The crumpled remains
is all he has left
of you;
sister,
mother,
caretaker.
Danny,
the little brother you left with me.
He cannot see the burning city
thru our one
single
eye.
It is the silence
of our December
that keeps me awake
rocking a blind boy
with echoes of your hush lullabies.
