Across the Street from the Temple

my body aches deliciously now.

drifting feather suspended mid air.

balancing between nerves and ligaments

and memories that became loose

from my stiff muscles. that’s where they

had been all along. weights. knots, pains.

tense, that’s the word. jumpy. fast, as if

i were in a hurry to live and experience

everything before I die. die or run out

of money. why didn’t anyone warm me poetry

pays very little? and my Muse is jealous, too,

sometimes a bird’s glide across the gray sky

is the only beauty she wants me to see.

i’m sleepy, even, slow. less anxious again.

and i don’t think of myself was anxious, ever,

but my body reacts to the state of the world

like a tuning fork hitting bright aluminum.

a distorted sound of danger flows through me

as if i was in the middle of a war. are they?

drone strikes growing louder. are they with me,

against me? am i the Hamas or the IDF in their story?

are those missiles to protect your ego, brittle men?

or are they glimmers of lightning, courage against the odds.

am i fighting the government, shareholder value,

my own unwillingness to die on dystopian terms?

inflation is taxation without representation,

i know that much. and the masseuse confirms it

in the silence of her palms and kneading elbows.

breaking through. it hurts. the acupuncture in her hands

and this, from when i twisted that way, and here,

on my hip, where a girl tried to store their shame,

which i kept, to study, and heal. push, pull. rise.

like a tuning fork finally knocking wood. slow, even.

like the smell of fresh croissants just a few days ago,

at Collete, when i was at the end of my income and strength.

they are all very sweet there, and a proprietor let me pay

the next day, when she saw my card was declined and i

had nothing with me but a few cents and paint stains.

but on that day, the scent descended as i sat to eat,

like Pachbel’s Canon in D, or like the song my father wanted

at his funeral, played by his youngest daughter, whom

i still haven’t met, though i doubt she plays the piano.

Etude No. 3 by Chopin. soothing serenading notes

i can always return to on my own when i worry too much,

because after a few seconds of getting swallowed by

the gorgeous trace of fresh bread, what else is left to hurt over?

hopefully i can go back tomorrow if they’re open, i hope they are.

and they open early, but i shouldn’t go before noon, out of respect.

and never dunk the croissants —cuernitos, as my mom calls them—

before that first bite. that first bite is golden, and i like that bite

crisp like autumn brisk, flaky and dry, inviting. a little no, before a big yes.