by Liana Keene
filled with air, I float
inhuman; superhuman
a girl waves at her father from standing on the curb
I am full of
dancing sixteenth notes
played beautifully
on a three quarter size violin
much older than I am,
inside of the memory
where it lives
the world is light
diffracted
and I have had nothing but good luck
since the universe changed.
The brown desert stretches out before me
green and gray and
tan
sand
nothing like this place on the entire earth
62 degrees
and truly
alive.
Mac’s la Sierra
is even better than my father remembered
and I lack words to describe
the bliss of eating
something
that tasted
perfect.
red chile
deep red orange
red blood
red bright
on my hands in the morning from my body in the twilight
in the glare of sodium light
a great expanse of blue sierras
monzanas y sandias
y la verde del valle
los coches que me pasan
volando
y las nubes,
todo, todo, todo.
un corazón lleno
de esto
llenando
como aire,
ya no pesa
nada.
Camino real
ahora se porqué
se llama esto.
Outside of Mac’s la sierra
another shift
a slender rose for me
a woman told me the story
she used to work there,
thirty five years,
and then a woman
called her a skinny bitch
and hit her
she met her outside the restaurant
and in one fell blow,
broke her jaw in four places,
wham!
she looked proud when she said it,
the wrinkles in her face drawing up,
part of me was shocked
part of me was adverse
and a part of me was like,
yeah,
that’s how it is.
I laughed,
because yeah,
it would feel good
to give someone like that
what they deserved,
calling her
a skinny bitch.
I guess that is what me and my grandmother look like,
I guess that is what we have become,
two different generations of
skinny bitches.
and my perceived solidarity is
with the skinny bitches
who stand up for themselves,
at sixty seven, she is a
strong woman.
and then she handed me a rose.
I didn’t have the words to say how much it touched me,
perfect stranger
that she was.
and my emotions move too slowly for most situations
and for me roses
will never again be associated
with pacifism,
fists fight and break blood
as red as the petals that curl,
beautiful.
Did she know that she altered
my reality?
Does she know?
No,
we all feel instead.
Leonardo Magazine 