Palm silhouette, second story window

Marlan S

More and more often the oranges smell like marijuana. Tonight
on the way back every smell makes me sick, cruising the alleys
behind restaurants with my stomach flipping out at the hint of
fried dumplings. I think it would be good for you to come home
and find me trying to pet the neighbor’s cat. See me as a loon
among the three blue chairs emptied, it would be charming.
The things around the person bring out their hidden colors. Just
a theory, like economics. Because of these furnitures you know
the color of my eyes for the first time. I discover the shaded side
of the yard. With the window you could catch our faces in most evenings

making small expressions as we read our Horoscopes. Not this Sunday
or the last. I was never a rowdy girl. I smoke just to circle the block,
to have a mantra. Hate is a kind of left foot running. Of leading without
grace. You will know that someday after you’ve been young. Our plants
and then us will die of cold. A good way to be preserved as you are.
On the bed waiting for an embrace. Or in the afternoon going to buy
some nice daily bread. Crouching by the stiff iced stalks under
the bakery gutter and seeing the caught flowers of Fall in their cases
of clear amber. Now it’s me noticing something about your eyes.
So close to the ground it makes sense to just lie down.