Why I Live Below Sea Level
the way this city works
a place with secrets like cake flour
a powder that is almost a liquid
peopled with men
with names like Mr. Sincere Lee
and Rivers Lelong- calling roll
it would be Lelong Rivers
men who buy bowling alleys
after they return from pilgrimages
and women with names like
Muffin and Precious
who restore homes and churches
respectively
the way this city works
we’re all cogs in the machine
but the cogs lead to levers
that operate fiber optic eyes
with fiber optic eyelashes
that wink provocatively
at the couple in the shadows
or the boy playing baseball
at a field where beer is served by 14 year old girls
or an old woman with a grocery cart
filled with birdseed for the monk parakeets
that she feeds everyday
at five o clock
they circle the park
while they wait for her
darken the sky with their want
and litter the earth with yellow green feathers
the cogs move levers
that push steam through a series of tubes
at first a wail and another
until they knit a melody that becomes richer
with each building note
and all of a sudden
you are no longer walking
but sashaying on the asphalt
that’s melted and distorted
from oak roots, heat and debris removal trucks
here the road seems Himalayan
and you
in red leather mary-janes
dancing no puncturing
these self same streets
beating out a rhythm
behind a ten foot fat cat
held by the most beautiful woman in the world
wearing a straw fedora
and linen shirt
toddler in shiny Mexican wrestler mask
this is what we do
when the heat opens envelopes
here we turn termite printed splintered lathe
into constellations
make tarpaper valentines and
molded drawers from “This and That Salvage”
into automatons
of a bird feeding her heart to her young
we feast
in this place where you have to look up
to see the boats
as if they were flying
Susan Gisleson
Originally published in Constance: Delicate Burdens 2008