“47th and lake park”/that doesn’t make you a baby Yesterday i met this lady at the red line station (the Sheridan stop) and i, frail and shivering in the summer air chain smoking, observing pitch-black sky– and she grasping my forearm in desperation cried out searching for home, searching for “47th and lake park!”
Tomorrow i am: seated.floored, attempts to document pressed down upon atoms in the form of a (table?) noting this with mug, steaming “47th and lake park!” An Hour Ago the man alongside her dressed ominously costumed in all white; this black “messiah” propping her upright, her, a marionette, threading finely stitched through her fleshher flesh, desperate to wrench free to reach “47th and lake park!” Now you rest beside me draped in blankets you, and it/i/they shielded from fireworks in honor of the birth of our motherland you are holding me upright, one bite at a time “47th and lake park!”
One Fortnight Ago we are on the train headed south headed south headed south and, she is fumbling with her speech can’tthinkcan’t– “47th and lake park!” Here my muffled screams into the fabric of your pillowcase reverberates through your apartment walls, these, sound waves imitating my body’s (or are they rightfully her) visceral convulsions, these phantom motions of resistance i am, reluctant to disclose in plain sight to you, still, even as you are whispering to me, “that doesn’t make you a baby” and, even in the privacy of this shared space,
my strained vocal cords are still mingling with, the echoes of her wails scalding air “47th and lake park!” And That Night he is dragging her out at the Roosevelt Stop away from home– Hyde Park!/ (NOW SHE IS PROTESTING) and away from its– eyes, quaking we spectators, speechless we spectators, speechless “47th and lake park!” In A Week’s Time you are acquainted with slow dying insects, and inhaling the aroma of nepeta june walkers headed north, you–– “47th and lake park!” Erstwhile masquerading messiah in the midst of evacuation,
forgotten flunitrazepam container beneath his seat as they evanesce from sight– these remnants, rolling, this motion, mimicking, our train retreating, and my lungs, receding “47th and lake park!� Tonight i am in the bathtub, quivering shower surging overheadhanding this bottle of wine, red to a soaking, outstretched hand