I was chicken
dropped only a half tab--a quarter before midnight  
and hurried back to my apartment
before the day changed    

from a Monday
to a ruby Tuesday  
where my walls melted
and music smelled like sassafras;
the flickering flares of light from two fat candles  
tasted like toasted almonds    

every eternal hour, or minute,
or so, I would try to tiptoe down the hall  
past the sleeping neighbors who were all dreaming
of me, skulking past their locked doors

but I never made it to the street
a feat that would have demanded
I stop giggling, and my heart stop thumping
for any pig or narc could have seen
my crimson machine pumping
ready to fly from my chest    

dawn did finally come--I was
coming down, down from the floor
on which I had lain from the minute
a ferocious fly dive bombed me
somewhere around three  

I walked to the corner grocery store
where I bought pan dulce, and was glad the clerk
spoke no English, for surely she would have asked me
to tell her how I survived such an aerial assault  
in peacetime

"Everybody's talking at me,
I don't hear a word they're saying,
Only the echoes of my mind,
People stopping, staring,
I can't see their faces,
Only the shadows of their eyes,
I'm going where the sun keeps shining,
Through the pouring rain,
Going where the weather suits my clothes,
Banking off of the northeast winds,
Sailing on a summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone."

-Harry Nilsson

Sophia sorts through
her parents' room;
they're out for the day,
some Polish old comrades

meeting of her father's,
old war pals. She opens up
the old wardrobe, sorts
through things, takes out

her mother's old dresses
and some new ones, puts
them on the bed. She likes
a red one, old but well kept.

She ponders, she decides
to try it on. She undresses
from her own jeans and top
and puts on the old red dress

and looks at herself in the
wardrobe mirror. Her mother
must have been her size back
then, it fits like it was made

for her. She does a twirl, looks
back at her ***, her thighs,
turns to the front and stares
at her *******. She doesn't

remember her mother wearing
the dress, not a dress she recalls
her mother wearing at all. She
looks down, it comes just below

the knees, although she's taller
than her mother, so it would
come lower on her mother.
She embraces herself as if

Benedict were there behind her
putting his arms around her
and breathing on her neck.
She stares at herself in the mirror;

stares at her full length. She
smells the material. It smells
of stale perfume, but not horrible
or clammy. She walks around

the room in it; looks at herself
in the mirror across the room.
She'd ask her mother if she could
borrow it, but then she'd have to

say she'd been in her mother's wardrobe
and that would cause hell with her
father and she didn't want that. She
take off the dress and stands there

in her bra and *******, and puts the
dress back on the hanger, and puts
it back with the other dresses where
she found it the wardrobe, in the right

place, and pushes the clothes back as
far as shes can recall in the order they
were, and closes the wardrobe door.
She dresses back in her jeans and top.

She pauses by the bed. The crucifix over
the bed. The Crucified staring down
pityingly. She touches the bed with her
fingers. She'd like to bring Benedict here;

make love here. But not after last time
in her room and her parents came back
after and that was too close. And some
neighbour had split on her and said

they'd seen young man and her come
here while her parents were out and her
father gave her the third degree over it.
Her father said she can only bring the

boy when they were home. Couldn't bring
Benedict back for *** while they were
downstairs sitting watching TV and
drinking their wine and such, and not

in her parent's bed, not beneath the
Crucified, except in her blonde haired head.

It was 1969 the day was 15
I was up in the sky
I was only eighteen
White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York
I saw trees being hugged and loved
I saw no one eating pork
The rhythm, the sense of happiness and being free
I was one with everyone
like it was meant to be
I cried from excitement, tears full of joy
It’s like I relived Christmas
when I was just a boy
I made love with the one I’m with today
I have three beautiful children
And that’s how it’s going to stay
I kept the blanket that kept this family whole
all because of 1969
I rest with the blanket with the hole