Breadcrumb #648

JP INFANTE

Some nights I dream Jean Michel Basquiat is as high as a concave heaven,
bombing The Creation in the Sistine Chapel with a Miguel Piñero poem in graffiti.
The junky genius then descends like a soul in The Last Judgment getting home on time. 

Some nights I dream my stepfather gets home, 
baseball fitted to the back, long before his parole curfew while I’m still up, 
and tells me about Yankee Stadium and tagging up train carts in 1980s New York City.

In my sleep he gets home before the sun sinks in a quicksand horizon.
He gets home at an hour he can’t blame nodding off on fatigue.
He gets home long before dusk.

In my sleep his eyes don’t shut mid sentence. His hat doesn’t fall off. He never nods off. 
There’s no getting sleepy. No getting sleepy. No getting gone.
He never misses home.

YOU’RE OUTTA HERE! 
According to God, the ultimate umpire.
But we all know even that fuck makes the wrong call.

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Breadcrumb #645

LUCINDA KEMPE

The poet sent a photograph of “frost-sad” primroses growing in his English garden. 

“Today is your fuck day,” my husband said earlier. 

This is what he says every Friday. It is a game he plays. I sent the poet a reply photograph titled “Primroses in a pot on plates” only to realize they were cyclamens after I’d sent the Tweet. 

I’m losing my mind. 

Snow fell overnight, a bare inch and a half, enough to powder the ground. My hellebore, planted next to the cesspool, sometimes blooms in winter. My Manx made a fast, morning dash into the yard, almost invisible but for the gray fur heart on his side. I named him Dart, which suits his manner and his coat. He had a tail when he arrived, but lost it to cancer. 

Jenny Diski died of cancer last April, not long after finishing her book. The poet is holding a reading in her honor in London on January 12th. I won’t be attending. 

I’m planted on this side of the Atlantic, waiting, watching a gray heart gamboling in snow.

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Breadcrumb #644

RACHEL LAVERDIERE

Light a jasmine-scented candle before you begin with shelves to house books to inform thoughts. Then paint the walls aquamarine and free a kaleidoscope of butterflies that’ll flutter past shelves encrusted with seashells. Pepper the room with an explosion of feathers. Toss in a cat for good measure. 

Let the cat crouch on all fours, and she’ll become your personal temptress. Let her purvey secrets & provide stolen thrills while she lounges on embroidered pillows. Keep a caged monkey to promote inspiration and to give voice to all beaus & husbands & sons trapped by earthly desires. Give him an apple to remember the fall. 

Forgo electric lights and melt jasmine-scented candles by the dozens. This will cleanse impure fancies and invite a return to pure thought. Adhere mirrors to each surface to ensure your pursuance of Truth.

Caress the seashells & comfort your monkey. Seek out the cat & drift into the possibilities offered by her embroidered pillows.   

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