Improv 1, Week 9

Improv 1, week 9

Lorna Dee Cervantes

Colorado Blvd.

I wanted to die so I walked

the streets. Dead night,

black as iris, cold as the toes

on a barefoot drunk. Not a sound

but my shoes asking themselves over,

What season is this? Why is the wind

stuttering in its stall of nightmares?

Why courage or the bravery

of dripping steel? Given branches

rooted to their cunning, a kind

of snow lay fallow upon the hearth

of dried up trunks, wan and musing

like an absent guitarist strumming

wildly what she’s forgotten most.

Bats fell about me like fire

or dead bark from my brow beaten

autumn. A kind of passing through

and when it called, the startled bird

of my birth, I left it, singing,

or fallen from its nest, it was silent

as the caves of my footfalls left

ridden in their absent burials.

What good was this? My cold

hearing, nothing, more desire

than protection. When would it come?

In that clove of cottonwood, perhaps

that shape in the mist, secret

as teeming lions. Is it my own

will that stalks me? Is it in

the slowed heart of my beatings

or the face that mists when

I least expect it? Frost covered

the windshields of the left

behind autos. In his parking

lot, my savior rests, lighting

his crack pipe, semi-automatic

poised at my nipple or the ear

I expose to witches and thieves:

Here it is. Will you kill for it?

Lenox Avenue

I wanted to feel air in my

Lungs again, but instead

The sputtering exhaust of

A hoopty rolled across my face.

Hands wiping pterodactyl deposits

Out of my squinting eyes

Like the alley cats when they clean

Themselves to the cascading

sun rays. Garbage occupied corners,

guilty by association with the men

who found treasure and survival in

an empty coke can. Orange peels and

Halal soundtrack Icee ladies and

Mr. Softy trucks coating air with

French school tunes, most of the buyers

Could not name. Hydrants sprayed it,

Dominoes smacked against composite

Tables say’d it and Hallujah jumped

Into the mind.