The Underground Man. Jasen Sousa
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to, "what we must do to be an adult.” There was nothing better
than playground days and no scheduled time to be home.
Crooked picture frame, hanging
underneath a dead clock and insects that contort
inside fluorescent light fixtures. A blinking light on my office phone
and the messages I haven't heard because I already know their content.
Disconnect…
Meet Me in Somerville
Meet me in Somerville
and drown matches in overpriced coffee.
Out of reach stars sit in the sky,
like decimals in my mind
trying to rearrange numbers
so I continue to buy
things that will satisfy me
for no longer than my favorite TV show.
Meet me in Somerville
where residents live on top of one another
just to afford rent. Do you know
about the underground economy
where greedy landlords
stuff the undocumented into triple-decker tents?
Meet me in Somerville
next to the crooked EBT sign
hanging on by yellowed tape
that changed texture
like the skin of a relapsing…
Meet me in Somerville
by the empty space
occupied by the previous generation
that grew up to be cultural myths and urban legends
layered inside the foundations of gentrification.
Broken promises jotted down on alleyway walls
by the city’s most unreliable narrator.
Antique Man
I took a photo of an old man in Maine
who sat down gingerly in a wooden chair
after removing multiple avocado green
tarps off his merchandise. It was about 9:15 A.M.
and the dampness from the moist dirt ground
crawled inside my socks, up my legs,
and drilled holes into my flesh. Water from
an overnight rain found its way inside soup bowls,
cologne bottles, and cups that I might have seen
before in my grandmother’s cellar.
His thick glasses weighed on his cheekbones
like the stacks of hammers, wrenches, and saws
that put a slight bend in the center of his tool’s table.
This man’s life and interests
were played out: Star Trek comics,
Coca-Cola bottles, Billie Holiday records,
and stuff that didn’t quite add up
like the floral china set that maybe
belonged to the love of his life.
I couldn’t have been more wrong
about my definition of nowhere. What is nowhere?
Radiant foliage? Winding roads? Christmas tree farms?
What is somewhere? Crowded subways? Addiction? The Corner?
I was burrowed in the middle of a man’s life
and realized how time has a humorous way of determining
what is and what is not valuable to someone anymore.
Antique man sat in his lonely wooden chair
for hours on end in a flannel shirt and grey beard
waiting for others to come by and replace what they
lost in their lives along the way.
I looked across the street and felt like
I was the only person who heard
the thumps of autumn leaves
falling inside of a Maine cemetery.
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