Born in the green light

I was born in the light of the green
where once 17 banners hung.

As a child I would visit the garden, walk through
bright colored seats
and watch the block!
swish!
of hands and bodies dancing
to the rhythm of the court.

I am homegrown
a fan
if you will
of that fighting Irish.

Through injuries
tears (mine and theirs)
I watched.
Hands clenched
sweat streaming
heart racing as they run
back to catch a rebound.

I was birthed in their green
and white light
and I always be in it.

CNN

the news was just
attractive women in pantsuits
against a backdrop of monitors
explaining
how one can earn five hundred dollars
selling sports memorabilia
and jewelry
collecting dust
in the closet
on ebay
on amazon

but their accent-free cadence
the space they occupied in the frame
reminded me
that somewhere
is a bomb
a starving person
a drug mule
a virus taking shape
water torture
something that could make our
bubbled existence
thrift store oddities
sunglasses
giggling
farting
misadventures
seem quite silly
quite dwarfed

skin

on the sunning stoop I am sitting
peeling an orange and listening
lisa talks about how
to build a forest.

the knees of my purple leggings are
coarsely capped with powdery grime
of dubious composition accrued while
kneeling and digging on hard warehouse floors.
my hands, I think, my hands, and I consider
popping the first section into my mouth.

you must strike the delicate balance,
lisa is saying, between the builder
of the forest who is responsible
for its ultimate fallability,
and the seeker whose task it is
to accede to the solace of its limbs.

my feeding hands must be equally full
of the unknowable dust I know to hold far
further than one arms length but instead
I bend at the elbow and pierce sweetness.

pumping

All three were skilled in the use of parasols and feathered fans, but their intentions were as indecipherable as those other women from Mompox.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I.
There are a thousand mysteries
not worth maintaining.
Fall open, fall open steel heart.
There are not enough days in this universe to merit hiding.

II.
Red dress, boat necked,
profile peering twisted,
yellow umbrella perched.
The picture captured the way I looked
at a carnival in fourth grade.
It was exactly how I pictured myself to look,
exactly how I wanted to look,
revealed only weeks later
when the film got developed.
If only there was a way to know
at the time.

The “Natural Color System” is widely used in Scandinavia.

there are many shades of yellow
bright yellow
light yellow
neon yellow
mustard yellow
lemon yellow
amber yellow
canary yellow
sunshine yellow
goldenrod yellow
mikado yellow
school bus yellow
yellows do not look good together
one shouldn't mix and match
they will always clash
and make you look and feel like crap