P A R (T) I (N G) S

by Amy Mascena

I am leaving for Paris tomorrow my love
and everybody is telling me that is gonna be cold
and humid
and unpleasant
this time of year
they say...

but i long for the long lines of bare trees
at the montmartre cemetery
the valleys of tombstones
the coats
the rain
the skinny loneliness that forms a thin cement like layer in your misty head
your tiny feet behind my eyes
each time I would close them

the sound of them in the wet sand
like a ghost
a smoke track
a half listened goodbye

all of them will know about
the quivers,
that last day on the town feeling
by the dusty loving bones of jeanne and her neverborn son
and that stone wall 
of the dying
and the moss and the bullets
and the cowards,
a hotel room is never home unless...
yes,
all of them know

you
nurturing life
me
looking for it on the road
like a waltz without the music
a horse without the straps,
San Bernardino in the light evening sun,
there are red velvet love affairs  
under the cobblestones
and it breaks your nails to look after them

How to miss someone without a face

drawing by Amy Mascena

Chinatown reveries
in a thin
fake
heart shaped necklace
golden as the day fades away
under the painted nails
and the fruit trucks
all dirty
all rotten
like a bounty killer
for your cloudy soul

downtown LA reveries
in the middle of the day
with all those wax gods
to thank and burn because of you
for the longing
for the words you said last time we had sex
for the words you don't say now

white disturbing plastic dresses to celebrate
that we ran away,
dime stores in the old temples,
collapsing echoes of the Hollywood goddess,
red letters hanging pointless under the curved
chilly
California sky

Children with plastic machine
guns
ice cream
dried tacos for the preacher man
monsters trapped in the swallow brea of your huge green eyes,
the pounding smell of the lilacs leaves
under my nose
and under my tongue
the taste of a tanned neck

this is changing me
I have been stretching the getaways
until I found the bottom
on that grainy morning
through a window in Brooklyn
far away from this cactuses
this rosemary love affair
that stays at night and is tender
and carnal
and distant
while I close my eyes under the shower

now all those days look beautiful in silver
like an old useless coat
at the salvation army counters

those lonely hungry days
in which there's nothing to do but walk around
and kiss someone blindly
and miss someone who
has a boyfriend and a kid
and all her lonely nights and fears

manifestos of the shattered remains of the human being-begging-sleeping
and the melodies for the empty handed
sisters of the broken hearted
linger in the dense air of the evening town
full of ashes, walls of smoke
and whatnot