Breadcrumb #404

GARY GLAUBER

The large man
on the elevator
makes sure all
the women enter
and exit before him.
He wishes everyone
a blessed day ahead.
The young woman
standing so close  
on the overly crowded
downtown express train
is oblivious
to my reading
what she texts
on her phone.
It is in Chinese –  
privacy is protected.
The lanky Dominican
wags a finger, 
looking out
for his elderly Papi
sitting across the way.
He serves up a smile
as our eyes meet.
At my stop, 
I wish him
a great day.  
This is the circle
of kindness
not publicized,
the soft magic
of the city,
its melting pot
of various peoples,
all going about
their respective business,
but paying forward
good wishes that make
the daily challenges
of the harsh metropolis
that much easier to bear.
You too, my friend,
he answers back.
The doors close behind me,
but the day is just beginning.   

• • •     • • •     • • •

Breadcrumb #403

MELANIE CALANTROPIO

I wipe the sweat from my forehead and
admire the flowers -
I have waited all year for them to grow.
I have watered them,
felt their petals on my soft fingers,
clenched the soil between them and sobbed
on my knees, submissive to dirt
grateful
you tell me the beauty lies in the impermanence
but I long for something tangible
the sour taste of sap, dripping from you -
a promise.
when you are gone, they are flaccid
bent over, praying
for redemption
they turn to dust.
our daughter wants to know,
"will we disappear too?"

• • •

Breadcrumb #401

CAROLINE REDDY

I had to give up nicotine years ago.
Now my fingers grip bamboo chopsticks
not for salty udon noodles or slurps of sake
but for green tea, steamed broccoli and brown rice--
with sauce on the side.

I miss the inhales and exhales:
tree pose isn’t enough to kill the memory of the taste.

Cloves and black lungs,
coughs and the ashy residue, 
make it easier for long stares that occur
at 5. a.m;
looking at up at the ceiling
where lines spread the shape of spider legs
across the creeping shadows.

The white noise of the fan,
the cuddling,
and coos of my lover
isn’t enough to tune me out of me.

I miss the inhales and exhales
tree pose doesn’t kill the memory of the taste.

I want to hum a silly song
just to occupy that space:
a quiet field where dandelions and kites
breeze behind a canopy of purple leaves.

• • •

Breadcrumb #400

ALICE RIDDELL

Warmth and moisture for those walking,
Through the cold and dry stillness.
Listen though, hard,
To cadaverous tête-à-tête.
No tongues to wag,
Yet in the chambers and cambers to be had,
Be sure of cranium conversations.

Cavernous caves created,
By femurs skipped and crisscrossed,
Skulls stacked to rest on one another in peace.
Immortalization of calcium and collagen,
Ostentatious osteopathy?
Or merely grottos to genuflect respect,
Of those no longer able.

A saintly Saint; string her up and let her spin,
And a Whizz bang pop not.
Flesh and charcoal denied,
Wheels to shatter at her touch.
Coptic, gnostic, Oh Alexandria!
Your holiness one to contemplate,
Milk flows and fireworks.

Catherine and her sewers,
Yet she isn’t down there, in Hugo’s conscience of the city,
Though others abide in such underground ossuaries.
Roberspierre, Roberspierre, where for art thou rosaries?
Lost in La Fontaine of anti-youth.
And what of Rome and subterranean saints?
Stephen in Commodilla, Callixtus in San Callisto.  

Contained in embalmment and entombment,
Deny no tears and deteriorate,
Now really de-compose yourself!
Preservation most precious to those remaining,
But to decay into clay and minerals,
Is to feed the soil and those that slither,
Worms slip through eye sockets and into maturity.  

Mausoleum for the beautiful doomed,
Or sepulcher, even cenotaph,
Mocked by the unmarked catatonics in catacombs and crypts.
Charnel house to house unsaved souls,
Far from the saved coffined in safe cemeteries.
So many semantic spaces to hold the dead,
Cryptic messages for the gravely serious.

We must not forget her,
They made a cult for her,
Hail Catherine and her left hand of heat.
Vestal intercessor of divine interlocution,
Whose wheel lives on to spin,
Spirals of virginal potassium and powder potent,
Aesthetic pyrotechnics; a prayer to the martyr.

Forsaken souls shake the living,
Invitations to tunnel into the cracks.
Coaxing claws crumble at the warmth,
Tarsals kick and scramble back to the dark.
None such be blessed,
My sunken seraphim and covet cherubim,
In the maze below with Catherine and me.

• • •