zine in proggo (2)

AROUND THE BLO CK .

excerpts from a poetry manuscript

by Alessandro Roberto Levine Hall

MY M UHA MMED You never learned anyone’s name -how are you dear it’s good to see you my love doll -and you fooled them all owned their space taught me tactics of the undeceived, but now you smell of clothes worn too many days in a row, and your back bends like a question mark.

I see Muhammed Ali shaking with torch in hand, and when I stand before the mourners singing out your name one last time, I make sure to lie just the way you would have wanted.

Nobody knows.

photos by daniel chan

n

HOW ARE YOU TRUE TO ME HOW ARE YOU TRUE TO ME

HOW ARE YOU TRUE HOW ARE YOU TRUE

HOW ARE YOU

J E T B L U E 5 41

photo by iman al essandra floyd-car roll

before I lost my luggage and waited in line for hours at the JetBlue kiosk we flew together you on my back running up hills till calves burned and heart outraced breath. we are not birds. when I take off my shoes my feet should hurt rubbed raw, tender swelling with fresh memory.

You shrink throughout the day dad always said.

Stranded, grounded, stripped of all possession I close my eyes and remember the times you came to the house-we fought with ice cubes watched them fall into puddles on the floor, collecting candlelight, we held the night hostage demanding stop-time, and picnicked in Prospect Park where we rested like tight-rope walkers midway across skyscrapers our spines balancing on cable grooves looking up at army tanks and artillery men-violence existed only in imagination and the gerrymandering of the clouds.

PO EM ON CONCRETE photos by daniel chan

She was 14 years old hiked the sunburnt canyons of Arizona vast, vulnerable, exposed like cracked pavement on neglected Midwest roads, she wrote poems about bird migration hollowed space the things girls notice to make them feel like women and snuck off into the land with two older wanderers,

in a clearing she smoked her first joint tasted risk, exhaled all of her tormenting nicknames, Tucker, Dubrovnik, Tug McGraw, recorded the feeling and placed it in her pocket

photo by daniel chan

D E E P S E A CIT Y Because when I looked out the window, at the satellite on the roof across the street speaking with shadowed moons spinning like laundry, and the airplane humming to the tune of queer speed, I knew the air I breathed did not belong to me but listened again and through my body felt the world bend

//on taking up space //on feeling small

CAT SITTING. What is so shameful about empty space? shameful about empty space? What is so about empty space? What is so shameful space? What is so shameful about empty is so shameful about empty space? What

I hate animals, but I took care of Banquo, a fat cat with marshmallow fluff fur and all sorts of shitting issues from down the block.

I’d walk over in the late morning wearing my pajamas and unlock the heavy black steel door, paint peeling like scabs in the sun. I’d slam it closed, letting Banquo know I was here. The door-knob always felt cold.

Inside I would walk quickly, running away from the sound of my own footsteps, creaks and quivers. I was always alone. Me and Banquo. I’d imagine making the house my own, cracking an egg and reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, taking a bath upstairs, or stretching out on the couch, dreaming myself into the pictures on the wall, Han China, the peaks and valleys of each calligraphy stroke, indigo sunsets. But always I’d walk straight to the kitchen and open a can, listening to the metal echo across the empty house as I beat out each drop into the bowl. Banquo had attitude. He’d scratch my leg impatiently, and I’d make him wait. Sometimes a while, washing out the can, the lid, scrubbing the spoon shiny before placing his bowl on the floor, then hurried out, double checking that the door was locked.

What is so shameful about empty space? What is so shame-

In July Banquo melted into the floor, paralyzed for days.

I worried he was my patient on “that side” of things.

I worried when neighbors called on wet nights, hearing whimpers from outside. But I never worried for Banquo. I couldn’t tell you the color of his eyes.

I held a life in my hands and fed it meat scraps swimming in gelatin goo each day. I feared the power of caring for this life and never stroked its fur. I scurried past the house as if it was the unlit home on Halloween, the place with the scary old man, cane raised, howling at the wind and chasing young kids from his stoop. I held the keys, locked the house tight, kept it empty, and yet I imagined a house full of mases -- a kindergarten class, a traveling theater troupe, an elephant vacuuming the floors. What is so space? bout empty a l u f e m a h s