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ANYWHERE
(An Old Business Card)
On
back of a yellowed printers calling card
from eighteen-eighties South Brooklyn city world,
a scripted message remains. Love defends
itself, "You are wrong, meet me anywhere,"
Love declares—"If I don’t convince you, I will
give you up." The message goes on, "Meet me
anywhere, at home or any place you
may name." A heart may not be swayed by words
yet someone did preserve this card. On back
of a yellowed card from eighteen-eighties
Brooklyn city world, a scripted message remains
as crisp as if it had been written this day
by
Cupid’s very arrow, "Meet me…" Love
declares, "and I’ll convince you…I am right."
FORTUNE COOKIE
It
was at a Chinese restaurant in Park Slope,
that’s no longer there. We had finished
our dinner and the waiter brought
the small dish with the two expected fortune
cookies. Having fun, I felt a necessity to play
with the cookies, and switched the cookies
position around and around, thinking it would
be more magical, recalling once before
for the moment, a fortune cookie had made
an uncanny truthful statement. I took the cookie
closest to me and pulled out the strip.
"Your date’s a dud."
How could they put that in a fortune cookie,
"Your date’s a dud?"
But
they had. I imagined if he’d gotten it,
him trying to hide the strip, trying not to let
me see it, thanking God he had it instead.
A gracious person, in his late thirties,
his conversation usually consisted of,
"my mother, the house, the cat," which was okay.
We were friends for some years, and I always
heard—"my mother, the house, the cat," not
always in that order. And it was all right.
Many times I soothed his guilt.
"For a couple of hours that you step out,
your mother, house and cat will be fine."
"Your date’s a dud," the fortune cookie said.
ENDING WORDS
Give her words to kill. Whacking words that won't
be found on any Utopian wall.
Yes, spare no heartbeat or good intention
(not that you had any), give her those words
to shock her heart dry. But then remember
that after all has been said some words may
sit with you in a nasty Alcatraz
or may walk you in a lonely desert.
Watch words, for they will haunt much better than
any "white jungle hunter," for those words
won't be encountered scribbled anywhere
in any paradise, and when you least
expect it, you will wake in pristine sheets
to see those words lying coy, besides you.
Evie Ivy curates several poetry reading series in
Brooklyn. Her first full-length collection, "The First
Woman Who Danced" was published in 2000. Evie is
presently putting the finishing touches on her second
collection, entitled "The Platinum Moon." |