Today
We made collages
Orchid hats with little plum mouths
Waxy arms bending towards hips
Dancers in wide white pants
Gallantly walking towards the park
My memories of summer unwinding
Meticulous spinning
Cayuga Way, Keats Road…
Driving from one dead person to another
The circle rotating, creating an endless blue vacuum
Is it a secret hiding place?
What is there under your wallpaper?
A private beach?
An almond croissant?
You belong in the most secret part of you
Everything else is reckless—dreamless, plastic and nostalgic
Fern fronds unfurling
Marzipan cats marching
Readers snapping their beaks all the while walking
“ Jabbering event” being the wrong words for the occasion
More about intertwining
The lacking of place
With its crumbling corners and billowy composites
Impregnated with blue for swimming pools
Save the greens for garnishes
I remember a bulbous hornet’ s nest
Hanging from the side porch light
Trumping sentimentality like an alien
The semi-solution was to go inside
A private encounter
An evening of philosophical toys
(Everyone cranked until their arms were sore!)
Despite the lack of kitchen space
There were garlic cloves and onions hanging in dainty nets
Spoons with tiny holes filled with vodka
Modestly drooping houseplants
My sex swaying and swaggering
It’ s hard to live in another person’ s context
Let alone like a recluse in a pastry shell
This is my feel-good position and this my feelie bag
If the cinematic impression escapes you
Hold the onion tightly against your chest when taking the train back
Whilst the engine slowly husks away at the horizon
However temporary or utopian it may be
Odd plaster shapes piled up to the sky
Even odder, today is the hottest day of the year
But my goal is to surrender
My body an unwieldy pedestal with eyebrows overgrown
Like the wildflowers on Antelope Island
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Christine Hou is a poet and arts writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Publication Studio published her first book of poetry, Accumulations in 2010. Additional poems appear in Weekday, Parallelograms, and The Brooklyn Rail. She currently runs the New York City arts education programs at Dia Art Foundation and is a dance critic for The Brooklyn Rail.