Be my guest.

Tonight I had plans to go to a Mormon party with a curse-every-other-word, Italian friend of mine. I was biding my time in Cafe Paludan reading when I got a headache that made it annoying to read anymore. So I set up a chess board at my lonely table, put all the pieces up and placed a sign in front of an empty chair for my would-be opponent: “Be my guest :)” I sat there for an hour wondering if anyone would sit down. I had myself in a central location near the bar, so a lot of people could see me. No one stopped.
An hour after I had designed the opportunity, a man saw it, did a double-take and asked me if I could wait three minutes. Of course I could. He came back three minutes later with a pint of beer and told me his name: Christos, from Greece. He’s studying meteorology and getting his Ph.D. in Copenhagen, and he’s a played chess for years. So he beat me twice in one hour, barely thinking about his moves.
I’m supposed to meet him to play again tomorrow at 6:00.

Solnedgang Felt

Fingers so cold they take my command reluctantly,
I'm thinking through the things Jack Lewis figured out 50 years ago.
How true the truth still is...
and of the premiere businessman of the 20^th century
But my thoughts turn and run off to the warmth
of a primary classroom and the song that was there sung:
“Perhaps excellence is not an act…”
So quickly the thoughts stream through my head,
in a lovely honest way, only to be broken by moments
of equally true and welcomed silence, which caused my eyes to close.
My arms folded around my small chest for warmth,
because since I stopped running and the sun kept setting,
the air kept cooling, until it seemed that the sun was coming up
And not down—up over a peaceful misty farm.
With no urgency and no fear of the cold, I opened my eyes
and saw a white cat back on the path so large I thought it was a wolf.
I tried to follow him, and only found myself a few inches deep in muddy grass
when the teacher and the businessman came back into my head and mused,
“Perhaps excellence is not an act, but a feeling.”

Seasons

something like an overexposed cheek
or strand of hair
maybe looking through both
with those eyes big for everything laughing at the sun
also like the things that were american
before you were: one-speed bikes
and a diana with light leaking onto a plain-faced girl
until her dress is lost in a heavy summer haze
not without the days of long linen,
big rugged boots and poison ivy
a men’s kurta and bright orange
fanny pack. Plus granola for a snack
and finally the unconventional beauty
of a conventional girl who prefers dates,
baggy sweaters, crocheted strings of hearts,
and a thousand other romantic things

LA, in all honesty

LA,

I've realized what the problem was with saying goodbye to you in that other letter. It's that my summer wasn't marked by my being in California. It was more about that feeling you get halfway down a roller-coaster when you turn your head to check the top and see if you left your stomach there.

I left my stomach in Nashville and was flung down west for three months. LA, you're probably better than I remember you. I simply never found a feeling there. I looked, under and over. And the closest I got was the ocean. Not the beach, but the freezing cold water itself. I liked being tossed around in the green and knowing that it only gets colder and deeper the farther out you go.

Mostly though, in California I missed feeling American. I missed the unproduction of it all. I missed the faces that no one knows, faces that don't care about becoming important. I missed going out to a hot hanging lake and knowing that only one person could find me.  I missed the trips I didn't even have, and lived mostly in Nashville with a tall boy and beautiful girl.

Although I was in LA, I was otherwise occupied.

Sincerely now,
Brittany

Vegetarian

Twelve ounces tortellini in boiling water
is supposed to be my humane dining option
since the meatpackers are trying to kill us all,
the animals, the workers, my balding grandmother.

Except that I can’t help talking to the food,
say hello, ask the little noodles how the family is doing:
Rotina, Manicotta, Macarono.
Once I decided they really could hear me, I told them.
“You’ll never see your cousins again.”

Expert Opinion

I should start out by saying
that the trees look like a system of veins
and that it’s winter, obviously.

I notice this because the eastern wall
of my tiny apartment is a giant window
that lets the sun into my room every morning
to rip the blanket from me and get me to school on time.

Tonight I look out of my window as a skeptic
because the author of my geology textbook
thinks that volcanoes are made out of red paper.
And if the experts can believe such ridiculous things,
what right do I have to believe in anything?

The trees are not made of paper, fools!
they are made of wood,
and paper is made of them.

Again over Color

A tree in civil war
started with one leaf
who challenged the principle
of green.

“Yellow is a valid life choice,” he said.
And the wind took his secret
up into the tree
the idea spread.

The green shouted, “No!”
The hate dried in his veins,
and the violence began
so much wasted, leaf pain

The fighting would surely end
in only one way:
in a wintery brown
and a field full of death.

This civil devastation
was ignored by all men, except one
who stopped to observe,
“Beautiful,” he said.

Dream-catcher

I can tell the dream catcher is listening as
The weight settles out of me again,
for a moment, then it disappears,
like some Native American wind.

I don’t know where it goes,
But believe that it belongs
Wherever the wind lands tonight
In the dawn, a water song.

Gone back to the glass-like surface
of some lonely lake, and even though
you hated giving it up, loved
having it far away.

Turquoise rock and feather
No appointment to keep, no date
It doesn’t matter to you
Whether or not I tell, you’ll wait.

Pale sinews drifting dry, that
have heard so many dreams,
Let the beginning break tonight,
There is healing in the wind.

Without Words

They had a feeling she was beautiful,
It spooked them.
It spooked them that they knew without asking,
A beauty they could see from the street,
Looking into the window.
A beauty that shook them so they couldn’t move.
From the street,
Across the yard,
Into the window,
And up the stairs.
There she was.
A beauty that pounded in their hearts and terrified them.
A beauty they couldn’t stop looking at.
A beauty that left them pinned to the road,
Too afraid to go knock on the door.
Too moved to pretend not to see.


In my hand: a book I'm adding to.

Dear LA,

My heart races when I think of leaving you. 

You make me think of burnout tees with tiger faces and rock bands printed on them,
Of familiar faces trying to go unnoticed
Of California softly coming in the open French doors, sinking into my skin.
Oh, you made me feel like there was helium in my heart.

You make me think of charging again and again into battle with the ocean and being rolled back out each time.
I think that counts as a loss,
But it felt like a win.
Ocean-one, Bee Bailey-one.
I feel fine.

You make me think of Saints and Angels.
They live quiet holy lives.
They build homes for strangers.
They build the kingdom for strangers.
And the strangers don’t stay strange for long.
Come into my heart.

Yep, that summer breeze makes me feel fine.

I’ll be seeing you,
ABEJA