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.

Anthony Thomas Lombardi

conversations with Chelsea Market

taking a shower at the Bates Motel

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