conversations with Chelsea Market
taking a shower at the Bates Motel
conversations with Chelsea Market
serve me the big dipper with
a slice of lemon so large, it topples
the glass over — spills constellations
across your rose-pink table cloth.
cut your hair like Joan of Arc & tell
your secrets to the last person that made you laugh
so hard
the sharp pain
still trickles down the back of your neck.
take a whisper-colored cab to Chelsea —
just to tell the sidewalks
what a lark your tryst was.
you were vulnerable & your heart was
in the wrong pocket.
it’s okay if you lie because
you’re not lying. the truth doesn’t sound
like the truth anyway —
it sounds like cobblestones & picked locks.
remove the splinters with the tweezers
you found at the bottom of your
lover’s purse —
they’re yours now.
use them to pick apart your horoscope
& breathe
in your worst intentions.
resolve to
try again.
taking a shower at the Bates Motel
for Rachel
i step out of Nosferatu & into a horror story
played with static electricity in real time. i don’t walk,
i stumble —
my face well acquainted with tile floors
& sidewalks, my lip prints stained
on bleach scrubbed marriages between foot & fall.
my wings are letters of note from fingers
afloat
& when they melt they become
a live action Salvador Dali painting.
colonies of bees sign up for volunteer services,
picket line humanity to stop the term “milk & honey”
from appropriating their livelihood.
pulling a halo out of your mouth, your ribcage
blooms into an apricot. a neighborhood i’ve seen
in dreams
if dreams were nightmares
& nightmares were a city only passed through.
we sleep soft on hard recognition
& awaken
to violets covering
a home on loan.
ANTHONY THOMAS LOMBARDI is a poet, writer, and former music journalist. He’s previously written for Under the Radar, Pop Matters, and The Big Takeover; has had his short fiction published by Abstract Magazine; his poetry published by Gravitas Anthology of International Poetry, Genre: Urban Arts, and Mangrove Journal; and is in the process of finishing his first poetry collection, “The Purple Tape.” He resides in Brooklyn, NY with his cat, Dilla.
