LAX — noon
Entering the food court is a revelation.
Here, at last, the people!
Resting the eyes on faces 5 seconds at a time
Don’t by shy with this fresh freedom
Why hide a loving interest?
The young, full lipped Starbucks employee mouths along to a text
Head down over the device, smiling, excited
Here, at last, the true shape of things!
What was that anxiety we described on the telephone?
The sauce on my pizza is sweet! It’s been made sweet for me!
Your flat, lovely, athlete’s stomach
You along with it, waiting for me.
Waiting exactly where I happen to be going.
I will fly through the sky to you
Someone will hand me nuts!
Music and differently illuminated brand names, colorful shirts, chairs
It is raucous in the food court, silent
I have never before noticed the clouds and sky painted on the ceiling.
Last night.
I stood in the tall grass
The moon was full
I held tightly to a lonely, bracing, static buzz
Like a hot pepper in my mouth
What was it for, again?
I left before I decided to.
Suddenly walking, suddenly home.
I’m sorry I hadn’t told you I’d joined the movement.
I got so excited that I felt I must have told you already!
Anyway, to catch you up:
We are essentially non-violent.
But recently, an airport was destroyed.
Wait. Don’t worry. Here’s the reason why:
Your head hurts because
The dog’s gone blind you’re
Sympathetic
You meet someone named ‘Lana’ and she changes your whole world
Slaps something heavy out of your hands
Your mind
Dana cries at breakfast
Fast out the door
Fastening her sweatersnaps.
All this change is fascinating when viewed aesthetically.
You wish you could share this thought with the kids.
The kids don’t look like you anymore they look like fire-trucks in the
Distance, shrieking so you wonder if there’s a language in that wail
A whale language
Too round and full voiced for you to hear as anything but a shriek
Too lively a suggestion to take seriously
You’ve become a rock formation that they
Pass on a hike
Were the scuffling and breath you heard last night the sounds of your daughter Fucking?
Does it make a difference that the boy fucking her
Seems nice,
Interested,
Sympathetic?
I’m going to ask you every morning to make coffee for me
I’m not going to make the coffee
You’re going to make it
I remember how happy you were
To make me dinner once
Oh you begged me to do it
You poured water in my glass
Skewered pineapple and shrimp
You had made an ‘Asian slaw’
The plate was very colorful
It matched your pink cheeks, green and yellow eyes
I warned you I might eat your face, your whole head
Tonight I saw an old friend
We got sentimental about you
And finding women like you to be with
Sam Alper’s writing has appeared in Gambling the Aisle, Toad the Journal, The Brown Literary and The Susquehanna Review. He is from Los Angeles. He currently lives in Brooklyn.
ISSUE:
S U M M E R
2013
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