My professor told me to play wildlyand let my words travel. NowI see rabbit holes everywhere andall my language has bags packedsitting at the front door with a jacket.
I’ve developed an obsessionwith unabridged, rambling, disordered lists:Groceries, to-dos, reasonsI am enamored with the curves of your fingerprints,funny names for my favorite color.
Tomatoes, oil change,they ebb and flow into each other effortlessly,like you and me, cheese puffs,the single olive in your mother’s martini.
Sometimes separately but sometimesall mixed together, gin with a twist,sometimes shaken and sometimes stirred;
Basic phrases I’ve learned in Italian, thingsmy apartment is still missing, mytop ten dead people, artists, moviesthat made me cry whatever the oppositeof crocodile tears is.
Vincent and Claude, of course,a shelf for the pantry, my grandfather.In bocca al lupo.Fold the laundry that’s been waiting,wrinkling all week.Bananas and almond butter.Aspetti qualcuno?Hippopotamus rain during the one whereshe goes to Café de Flore after Will dies.
They left the most intricate, oily tracksall over my most vital organ.
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