By: Salvatore Difalco
On a white day, no bulls run these streets, only shivers.
Snowflakes mount themselves like polar bears on sidewalks.
My black widow spider reads the morning paper over licorice.
Styrofoam espresso hits me like cocaine. I spin around.
There is no bottom to this boat. Mascara fingers my cheeks.
Street noise cracks my glasses. Everything looks like jewelry.
My thoughts come like bubbles, each tied to bleaching eyeliner
from my blouses. My handbags writhe with pens and maggots.
And yet how yellow would the sun be, contrasting. Like
the fire of lemons in a bowl. Like sunflowers hummingbirds
seek with Happy Faces. Bananas blacken over the day.
A fish brought me daisies in a cab at sunset this aft.
I carve a Buddha from a yellow pepper barefoot. Pages pile up
like carnations. Clarinets, English horns and freezer ice
grind coffee beans: I don’t want to sleep again.
I clean my nori seaweed in the washing machine.
Later, oboes serenade the stars while I salt blackberries.
Should lightning strike, I’ll shadow box, left-right-left.
Do you wear black tie or a chef’s hat to a plague party?
Birds poop on the Sabbath. A homeless man hawks cigarettes.
Salvatore Difalco’s work has appeared in print and online formats. He splits time between Toronto and Sicily.
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