By Arisa White
East Bay Rats are across the street from Gold Coin Car Wash
Oaksterdam is across the street from Victory Stables
Greyhound is across the street from Social Services
The woman in sequins is across the street from EBT Cards Accepted
The cross on his chest made my body the more bare. Compelled to be a blanket, fur, however he would have me, he had me. His god was something to hang on to. A chain that made return possible. My reflection sullied the gold. It dimmed above or beneath me, a way a mother’s face turns off her love. She offers enough to guide you towards her but her withdrawal leaves a cold spot, hollowed earth after a stake’s been pulled.
The house we couldn’t build is across from the house I wouldn’t build
Makes miracles happen is across from when whiskey made my tongue thirsty for hers
Blue Bird Liquor is across the street from the bathroom whose orange walls could not muffle
Hotel California is across from Broaster’s Chicken coming soon
Men, when they do, cross their legs in the way of academics. Never in the way of churchwomen who keep the secret covered—there’s nothing to be implored, explored, discovered. In the way of academics, the whole body thinks. To the side, he shows a chin propped by a fist, between his cheeks thought is candy, eyes turn skyward. In the way of churchwomen their eyes look down, to their breast, beneath their shirt, to the source of much anxiety, a nipple, pleasured by the touch of rayon.
City Line is a hand hennaed and scarred
Retro the Victorian’s scaffolded face
Free Baby Jamaica from the bus’ accordion folds
Black & White the street for a frantic Dodge, a passenger lost
I cross my t’s and think men are dying. The bushes sing baritone and contralto, from someone’s gut a baby’s born. For every shattered platelet, men are folding into each other, bodies pressed like puzzles. There’s comfort knowing his edge has a home. In a t. In a cup or covering the chest, he values sunrise, for days to speed, for the soul to let go bone. He the more aware death’s a trespasser, and the heart will bark ’til a red meat turns it elsewhere—a man at the end of wait.
Rent-a-Relic is the fence that says this side, mine; this side, you stay
The rainbow an International Blvd where pussy is young and produce is wilted
The lake is the ocean whose skin is split by pirates who negotiate with corporations
The senior citizens home weeps willows in his and hers yards
Cross my heart and hope, a needle in the eye. The cross is an X, really. Is how to find a treasure. How to hug at an end of a letter. If you dig where I mark, what do you do with the gravel, the flesh that slips back into the hole? Mail it to my brother, he is the most poetic. He will blend it with oil-colors and spend nights on canvas, painting verse after verse, with the breathiest weather, a text you can prism.