Christy Davids
I can only describe the quality of the light as sharp — clean — not catching on any scummy molecules but streaming with precision everywhere after a warm storm kept us all inside yesterday. Tho I can’t see the sky, I know there are clouds; the slowest strobe shone, pulsing on plant leaves I watch from my bed.
*
The Miracle on 13th Street looks tired. Festive inflatables look extra defeated in January. Riding against the wind, the block becomes a cinema in slow motion as I pedal; my eyes catching on decor gone askew on houses hanging on to the season. An inflatable Grinch reduced to a chartreuse puddle next to a chartreuse door. What this says about structure and ephemerality and time and desire I can’t say but do feel.
*
There is a parking lot with a chainlink fence through which large, rogue rose bushes thrust themselves next to the beer distributor at 11th and Catherine. From a rowing machine across the street, I gaze into their distant texture that’s far enough away I can get lost in my thoughts while repeatedly pushing my body through the motions of a being on a boat on land. I move my eyes north to the adjacent row home. But the brick’s discernible detail, the clear address, the finishes painted red are too crisp for thinking so I return my eyes to the tensions of plant and wire.
*
After locking my bike to a pole at 9th and Washington, I walk with thru the Italian market. Weeks ago, when my mom was visiting, I saw a glorious mid-century lamp in Good’s Vintage. TV lamps were once placed on boxy televisions to provide ambient light enough without disturbing the glow of the picture. The green gazelle stuck in my mind, so I went into haggle and left with the lamp — delighted.
*
I can’t cure grief, but I can feed my friends. At Esposito’s I ask for ground chicken and a big dude with a beard goes to check. It’s busy at the butcher shop. Someone’s pushing fish. Someone’s holding a list on paper wrinkled in an anxious grip. “We have it but we only sell it in five pound bags,” he tells me. I ask how much. It’s a deal. “Freezes beautifully,” I hear my grandmother say in my head. Behind the counter an old photo blown up features two women in dresses and fine coats standing proudly in a room filled with hanging carcasses. “What are you making?” I say and the butcher tells me to report back how the recipe works out and means it. The photo is somehow both candid and not candid.
*
Chilis and garlic string my eyes as I pulverize them with bunches of cilantro. The smell of fried meatballs makes its way into every corner of the house and remains long after the dishes are done. Somehow this feels like living.
*
I bring my friends upstairs where I require them to admire the green gazelle in all her glory amongst the many plants I spent surely too long rearranging. The light falls on their faces and everyone is beautiful. After braving the narrow row house stairs downward in socks, we feast. We play a game. There is ice cream cake.
Christy Davids is a poet and a teacher. Some of her creative and critical work can be found at VOLT, Open House, PennSound, Bedfellows, Jacket2, Dusie, The Tiny, and the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet, among others. She is the author of three chapbooks: on heat (2017) was selected by the editors in BOAAT Press’s 2016 chapbook competition; Dysphoric Geography (2019) was published by Neighboring Systems; and wanton (2020) was published by DoubleCross Press.
