By Lorena Osorio (Class 2021)
Photos by Lorena Osorio
put out
I.
the car took a shortcut on the way back.
that route was where we used to take walks
and talk about proms and your coworkers or how
you dreamt about the trains that ran upside down.
the stories were long and the walks much longer
but now we whizzed past, streetlights blending
into each other and humming the same way
they did when i took the wrong train home–
II.
the lights told me you’d be here today.
a million bulbs, wound around the palm trees
and you said isn’t it funny how the lights seem to
shine more when there are tears in your eyes?
but there were none in mine, and so the question
hung in the air before the dusk snatched it like
the final weeks slid and tumbled into days of
just white noise, but of course you saw it coming–
III.
–the strange thing about the drive by these roads
was not that it took five minutes; not even that
it didn’t stop or slow down as we ran past
all those glittering buildings, crosswalks, trees
but the fact i almost expected it to. but then
i guess time takes no orders from black holes
or broken resolves…. the wind blows and we flicker
and burn our last. there is nothing left to say.
unpaved (almost-somonka #1)
tell me where the road
changed from blacktop to just soil
sloping to where lamps
merge into distant stars and
stubborn unknowable sky
perhaps as stubborn
as us — stay put, stay quiet
before we get lost! —
but i was laughing aloud
and you were skipping–