
2 minute read
TO THE MEN WANDERING THE STREETS OF PARIS WITH ROSES
from Grotonian Draft
by Amy Ma
Fiona Reenan
who are you looking for? rambling around like adam & eve after the garden in the sunshine, in the rain, shoving flowers in my face reminding me that i was a lover, once.
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the three fates spin tales outside a coffeeshop you can cry now, sweetheart and when the saltwater settles in my irises they will read them like tea leaves. let’s see what you were before the wreckage before the sugar hardened, and the cows came home, well, i was sitting across from the ocean side-eyeing some saltwater taffy reading the age of innocence, your typical teenage dream.
a minute ago, it melted in my mouth. coated with ambition, warm like blood, and full of promises like roses that reek of cigarette smoke and cheap perfume. before my love affair with pessimism, i liked to look for god in sunsets, and would’ve bought flowers from roaming men in the city of love. but delusion, that tricky old bastard, took me out to a candlelit dinner and crashed the car into a tree on the way back to my place.
so over half-cold cappuccinos, the fates mutter something the death of romanticism. but i never could see clearly in candlelight. so beg all you want, i won’t apologize for the wreckage. or the roses. or the saltwater. just watch the sunset fall into the earth, like lost teeth sinking into taffy.
I burned my copy of edith wharton and took like three trips to the dentist. so if you want to learn a lesson, just look at the night sky.
those are not stars, they are planes my darling, everyone is running away high on the hope that love lies on the other side of border control. that’s right, just like the floral night-stalkers, drunk on old ideas, we are all chasing someone. once again I ask: who are you looking for?
In The Name Of God
Jasmine Powell
In the name of God, We place our hands together, Bow our heads, And close our eyes.
He has lifted our sorrows, And duty calls us to the pews, So that in our finest robes, We praise his name.
In the name of God, We sip the wine, We eat the bread, And leave the cups on the floor.
The help will mouth His name As they pick them up, And smile as we stand to leave, Even if we do not.
In the name of God
We shut the church doors at eight And the stragglers outside Cannot disrupt worship and when the doors open We stampede out Leftover hymns on our lips And gracious goodbyes
In the name of God father grieves his losses in the night donning the white tented hood that mother sewed–in His name and uncle writes the words that takes the books off the classroom shelves until faith is lost
In the name of God my grandfather cracked a whip and their work turned to his coin that turned to His
But in the name of God, We never speak of these. We bow our heads And close our eyes. Hostage to the night.