From Junk
We swap spit in the karaoke booth That time we hung out w/
our giddy newness at the Mexican restaurant by the bookstore
with the best reading series in the city and the glassy eyes
zooming in on each other Seeing only the wonder, like canary
yellow on a canary or like when our sky wraps up in Earth’s
shadow This is my yellow heart This is my gauzy two-people-
gazing-across-the-night-into-each-other instrumental situation
Don’t blame the junk for being discarded Hey do you do you
remember in the free-from-winter but not-quite spring after
poet’s brunch with Molly Amy Chelsea and Sarah Jean we went
traipsing thru slushy Williamsburg and wound up at that store
Junk where u bought all those old matchbooks for a “living room
conversation piece” I grabbed a June Jordan near the door as we
entered the labyrinth and read random gripping lines while you
lifted dusty old china wiry broken radios n hopeful cassettes We
got to the counter you took the book from me tossed it with the
matches and said “my treat” Well I told u I’d write it into some-
thing I am in the junk shop of my 30s A weird thing happens
when u enter: nothing You look up to a sea of button ups and
cuffed jeans and casual pomade flip-dos Ppl are too busy callin
themselves “poets” to notice the canary died I have only ever
gotten better at being my color, with the banded lines and the
tremors and the blues The older I get the more people move to
the city turn 26 fascinated by the wacky G train Junk is its acc-
umulation Not as indistinct as “thing” not as dramatic as “trash”
It’s important to value the Junk, Junk has the best stories
Read more great poetry from Brooklyn Magazine print edition here.