2:30 a.m. by Cooper Sy Blumenthal
Who in the middle of the night will write poetry
imagining a rainforest replacing wild flowers
in your terrace garden, a banana fish floating
past your bedroom windows, or notice the
thin stem green plant bending its neck
toward your reading lamp dropping
leaves on the novel that pleased
you so.
I am the witness so solidly framed
by my own illusions you have to
take your tongue out of its
metal lock box and swat
me down like a fly.
Flee or stay, but do
not speak of taking
me down the river
in your leaky
boat, dear.
I have sailed grand canals
when students marched
carried guns without
bullets, wrote poems
on planks of wood
falling bricks
broken glass
sharp as
swords.
And the beautiful young girl?
“Slugged shots of whiskey, tasted dry kisses
felt sharp teeth pierce my tongue.”
While strangers waited at the entrance
to your golden shore.
“I remember a beautiful boy with dark eyes
and black hair. He spotted me smoking
behind the tiny cinema on Rue Michel.”
“Gitanes,” I said. “Were you smoking
Gitanes?”
“Gauloises, more likely,” she said.
“I let him fuck me against the wall.
I told him I loved him in French.
My accent merged with his.
I didn’t change anything
for a week. No, I’m
lying, three days.”
She laughed, bringing it all back, lifting
her spirits off the mountain above
the sea a mile from her cottage—
once a retreat.
Turning my own memories over and over
again like a brown postcard with faded
ink, I cannot recall one as luminous
as those of a stranger.
Published in our third issue. Read more from Cooper.
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