Washington Ave. Bridge

The 16 bus saunters through the West Bank, 

its wheels picking up the remnants of last night’s snowfall.

As it approaches the bridge time becomes suspended

and the riders are allowed a reprieve from their days – 

the only calm in their commute.

Black hoodies and gray winter hats push up against the window.

There isn’t a face on the bus that hasn’t forced its gaze 

through the soiled snow-spattered glass to look down at the river – 

still and foreign to the commotion above. 

Disappointment, weariness and anger are pushed at the river, longing for solace in return.

Through a large break in the ice it looks back, 

dark and resolute, 

and refuses these offerings.

As the bus comes to the end of the bridge, the riders turn back to face front, 

accepting their burdens and drifting back into their day. 

Ode to the 16 Bus

Yeah, you keep me waitin sometimes, make me wonder if you really care.

Like, what was that shit you pulled the other week, on the 90 degree day with 87% humidity, when you made me wait so long
the sweat stains on my shirt resembled Rorschach figures?

I did not appreciate that.

But, likes always, after cursing your name a few times in my frustration,

you pulled up to my corner, lookin like you always do,

your driver actin like you didn’t miss the last two times on the schedule,

your insides buzzing with that cool, artificial air that makes me feel so good.

I sat down, found my place next to the window, unless some idiot forgot that

that seat is actually mine, goddammit, even if he had no idea.

Actually, this whole bus is mine.

I mean, I feel like we’ve gotten close, you and I, after all these rides.

You, takin me where I need to go – along University, from St. Paul to Minneapolis, then Washington Ave across the river,

bumpin along the edge of the West Bank (cause of all the potholes), and then

finally into Downtown.

Me – your faithful rider, gettin cozy in your faded blue seats scattered with crumbs.

Sittin there, looking out at my beautiful city,

plugged into my music, maybe sometimes getting into the song a little too much –

my foot tapin,

my head boppin.

But I know you like it.

Sometimes I’m not so happy.

Like those days tears ran down my face, my mascara coming with them,

and I just turned to the window, trying to be inconspicuous.

I knew you felt bad for me then.

Or that time I was real pissed off and started writing angry poetry in my head,

you trying to be like, now Emily, chill out, don’t hurt someone,

look at all the nice passengers around you.

And yes, I’ve ridden other buses, but shit, they don’t compare to you.

Like, the 8 is kinda wimpy – it only goes a half, no a fourth, of the way along Franklin.

That just ain’t enough for me.

And the 21 is cool, but really, I can’t deal with all the transferring it has me doin.

So, I’ve decided: you’re the one.

Maybe sometimes I’ll get mad at you, but damn, I can learn to forgive.

And I’ll always love that you never seem less interested if I’m not lookin my best.

So here we go: I’m gettin on and we’re riding together again,

forward along the pavement.

Friday Night Transportation

Don’t think I didn’t see you swaying in your seat, two spots down from me

on the B,

your feet moving one, two, three-four to the salsa music blasting out your ears.

I was trying hard to concentrate on reading.

Trying too hard to silently pronounce the Spanish of the poems in my book.

But all I heard was your salsa music.

Don’t think I didn’t see your bright orange shirt either,

its color putting the sad worn-out orange of the train’s seats to shame.

Only the bird squawking in its cage – who brings their bird on the train?! – competed with the loudness of your orange.

I couldn’t help but smile while still pretending to read.

And if I knew how to salsa better, maybe we could’ve danced

together, in the orange of the Uptown B.

Anger

…is easier than sadness.

It empowers and gives focus.

It gives strength.

A false strength behind which the pain hides

and is all too eager to show its face when the strength

to be angry runs out.

Then all that is left is a weakness,

a powerlessness.

A body overcome by a thing

not easily shed.

Anger might give power. But in the face of sadness,

of pain, all power is lost.

Anger is fleeting, while sadness remains, heavy and wet,

a force all its own.

Calle Lake

Lake Street. The hot tar screams at me, warning of its burning touch.

My silver bike frame glints in the sun the way someone squints when lights hits their eyes.

Sounds of mariachi music escape from car windows, where arms rest,

growing darker in the sun and heavier in the still air.

It’s hard to believe these streets, now decorated with empty bottles, cigarettes, a graying tennis shoe,

know the weight of two feet of snow and the bitterness of -20 degree days.

Besides the occasional leak of crisp air from a store’s door,

opened by an exiting customer,

there is no trace of cool.

The faint heat, smelling of warm sheets and detergent, emanating from a nearby, but unseen Laundromat,

swells into the already dense air.

This air pushes against my skin with warm hands – paws –

embracing me uncomfortably.

With each forward pedal of my bike

I am reminded of the moisture it carries.

The brick, cement, and stucco of the buildings steep in the heat, their sun-drenched colors announcing their presence without modesty –

lime green, chili powder red, deep azul, and corn yellow.

Their signs equally demand attention – Do Me Nails, Halal Market, Cutz Too Barber Shop, Lake Street Motors ‘El Abuelo Cringo.’

Faces painted on walls stare at me, their expressions fixed by the careful brushstrokes of the artist – smiles, looks of sorrow, eyes searing with anger, mouths open in triumph. None of them grimacing in the heat.

That expression is found on the people I pass by, shading themselves

with a shirt,

a purse,

anything,

as they place foot in front of foot lethargically.

On Bloomington a little girl cries out,

left on the other side of Lake by her mother,

who has successfully corralled her other three daughters to the curb

before the light flashes red.

Un minuto hija, y luego ven aquí.

Men without shirts pass by,

sweat droplets forming above their top lips and coating their backs.

Two girls navigate the sidewalk. Tight shorts. T-shirts. Hair pulled back.

They walk with a confidence only shared by sixteen and seventeen year olds

who feel grown, impatient, ready for something new.

A shared story propels one of the two to press her hands on her thighs in delight

as she opens her mouth in laughter.

One man catches my eye. He is walking quickly, carrying a bouquet of roses that have withstood the heat – their petals still deep red and firm in shape.

Whom are they for? Someone waiting beyond the din of the street, veiled from the heat?

I turn on 31^st, hesitantly leaving Lake –

my beloved stretch of tar –

covered in a layers of dirt and smog, but never wilting.

Learning

Tears cloud her eyes.

She defiantly turns away.

Tilting her head up, she gazes without focus

somewhere far ahead

in a motion only adults who’ve known great pain should have practiced.

Her lip begins to quiver.

She is only eight and is dealing with a burden too heavy for her delicate body.

She shuts out my questions, my stern commands, then my begging sympathy –

none of them permeate the shell she now encloses herself in.

While the other kids learn to read,

she learns that it is easy to get hurt.

She has learned, too soon, that there aren’t good guys and bad guys.

No, this may be what adults tell her, but she has learned otherwise.

She now knows that the good guys can hurt you so badly,

you question their goodness.

She’s no stranger to booming voices, contorted faces, and pointed fingers.

So I try with tenderness, to pull her tear-stained hands toward mine.

Some days this works.

But some days she stays seated on that bench,
pushing her sneakers through the sand.

She has already learned something I cannot un-teach her.

Fall in Brooklyn

The rain has subsided, for now; pushed away by the wind,

which turns over the few leaves that scatter the sidewalk, 

the rest still unsure if they’re ready to make their annual descent.

The wind flutters the pages of a newspaper, 

neglected and askew on the front steps of someone’s brownstone.

A couple passes by.

Strands of her hair sweep across her face. 

They stick to her lips as she opens her mouth in laughter 

and brush the edges of his face.

Racine, Wi.

The smell of rye bread, fresh out of its plastic bag,

bought at the Piggly Wiggly, lying on a China plate

that was purchased sometime in the ’50s by my grandma.

She sits in front of the cheeses – a thick block of cheddar (Wisconsin cheddar), Meunster; the meats – roast beef, honey ham, turkey breast (if I’m lucky);

and the egg salad (“too salty,” my mom says).

She insists we finish off every little morsel of her spread,

just as she pushed at us furniture, photos, and my grandpa’s shirts after his death.

In the hospital room, sitting next to his cold, still body

I drank orange juice from a Styrofoam cup and ate donut holes bought at a gas station,

the powered sugar that dusted my fingers resembling the shade of his hair.

I was unsure what I should do at nine,

what expression my face should take, what tone of voice I should use.

I couldn’t replicate the jolting sobs of my mother the night before when

she said she wished her dad had been

“more like Hank.”

I looked to others for cues – stony faces or wet eyes –

and felt ashamed when my cousin asked why I wasn’t crying.

~

We take the road from the church

that winds pass the cemetery,

where my dad points out the names of our relatives, sticking up from the ground

between sun-burnt blades of grass.

That road carries us to Main Street,

over the bridge,

through what used to be downtown –

sometime in the ’60s.

I imagine “Walk Away Renee” being played then as my dad

scooped ice cream for the residents of a city

ripe with the exhaust of revved cars, teenage anticipation, and the glint

of the Johnson’s Wax factory.

Now the chains of the park swing sets are rusty and the storefronts

appear beige and lackluster,

the lit “We Are Open” signs tired in their age.

“The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same.

You’re not to blame.”

Normal

How many Minnesota winters did I stare through that iced car window, too?

Searching out, into those gray days, when the darkness hits you at 4pm.

But he looks out at the strip malls of South Saint Paul.

At the rows of houses cloaked in the January snow, much closer together

and sometimes boarded up or replaced by a vacant lot.

We stop at his mailbox, but not before he tells us that he is scared to go back to school.

Because last semester he got so frustrated by feeling misunderstood

he broke a statue in the counselor’s office.

Because although going back reacquaints him with the few friends he has,

it also reminds him of their mobility, of the things his parents don’t allow him to do.

He may have Asperger’s, but these facts hit him hard, like the winter darkness, and saturate his days.

He hesitantly unbuckles himself, asking my friend to call him up, so they can hang out.

She says of course, but sounds distant.

I wanted to tell him I, too, know that feeling of powerlessness,

of feeling suffocated,

of wanting to break something.

But we waved goodbye through the blurred windows and took 94W back to the city,

our mobility so normal, so easy for us.

A Thank You Note

Thank you for breaking my heart.

Thank you for making me feel hurt, feel small.

Thank you for lying to me, for making me think it was this way when it was definitely that way.

Thank you for making me feel worthless

and then making me realize I wasn’t.

Thank you for making me dig deeper to find my strength.

Thank you for putting me through the bullshit that I used to cry about.

Cause now I laugh.

So what I really meant was, Fuck You.

Fuck you for not seeing what I was about to be and am fully now.

Fuck you for not ever having the backbone to respect me.

Fuck you for taking the easy way and letting me go.

Fuck you because you never cared about me enough.

So I’m gonna send this Thank You note to myself.

I’m thanking myself for being strong and dignified when I didn’t want to.

I’m thanking myself for still being strong even when I haven’t yet found what I want,

but know I deserve.

And when I do, maybe I won’t say Fuck You.

But you definitely won’t be getting a Thank You card.

Naw, I’m saving that one for myself.

Strength, or something

I still haven’t figured out what a strong woman is.

What does she feel like?

How does she walk; how does she laugh?

Are her eyes sharp with awareness? Do they ever show sadness when she smiles?

Has she ridden the bus with tears on her cheeks?

Does she ever snap back to wanton remarks about her body?

To tactless but innocent advances, because

she is vulnerable and feels secure in the small amount of strength this brings?

Does she sometimes hate all men because it’s easier?

Because she’s known immaturity, lies and disrespect of a few veiled by kind eyes and smart jokes?

Because sometimes she doesn’t believe she deserves better.

Because sometimes she doesn’t have the courage to search for better.

Has she known low self-esteem?

But now shakes her head at that old self,

that old self that holds inside the pain,

the residual pain that can still flair up in that new self?

Yes, she knows all this.

But she walks on, equally vulnerable and dedicated.

She knows strength, but is learning to be stronger.

Train People

Bleecker to 96th Street.

Steel. Rivets.

4th Street to 161st.

Brick. Tile.

Broadway/Lafayette to Union Turnpike.

Glass. Titanium.

2nd Avenue to 4th and 9th Street.

And back.

I look down and see six polished black shoes anchoring six pant-suited legs.

I look through windows of elbows to see faces sleeping, others obscured by newspapers, 

and my own between them, in the window across.

I hear the monotone rehearsed flow of words, asking for forgiveness, 

for sympathy for their disfigurement, their unvalued place in the city.

The riders try not to hear.

We emerge, into what has turned into night.

The scarlet nails of a woman gleam in the headlights of a taxi she impatiently waits for, 

her pinky rigidly outstretched, indicating to the driver where to stop.

We scurry away, each to a different corner of the city.

The Fair

I rise above it all, the Adult Swing lifting me 30 ft from the cement,

where scraps of corndog, wisps of cotton candy and discarded cigarettes

keep company with my shoes.

As I gain elevation, the din fades, only the noise of delighted shouts

swirling around me now in the late August air.

I see below the lights of the glider, the fun house, the arcades,

the food stalls where I convinced my father to buy me far too much cotton candy

for my own good so many years ago –

the remnants of its sticky crystalline sugars coated my mouth and fingers,

a proud testament to the feat I had performed at seven years old.

The swing lifts me higher now, causing my stomach to quiver,

reminding me that rides can still incite within me a fearful excitement.

Reminding me of a time when the greatest disappointment

was not being able to go back a third time to the games booth

to not win the bright blue over-stuffed bear, again.

Reminding me of a time when I knew only of the comedic antics and card tricks of that family friend,

not of the unspeakable reason he went to prison, why he rarely sees his daughter now.

Reminding me of a time when friends drifted away because of changed bus routes and different dance classes,

not because you realized they didn’t have the courage to care about you,

to make you a part of their life.

Now I can see it all, 30 ft from the cement: the bright hues of the Ferris Wheel

and the places where the paint has chipped away.

Serial Raspberry Eater

I’m a serial raspberry eater. I’ll admit it.

I plan my attacks with precision and care:

when no one is around, I approach the refrigerator with stealth,

scan the kitchen for witnesses,

and then close in on my victims.

And like any good serial killer, sometimes I get carried away.

I take too much for the killing.

My fingers drip with dark juice and give me away.

But I can cover up a crime scene like a veteran serial killer:

I slyly arrange each remaining raspberry,

spared from my violent urges,

putting them back into place and

without a guilty cringe in my step,

I walk away.

Trying to forget

Trying to forget the look your bold eyes gave me, silently tracing the edges of my body, then holding my eyes in their gaze – for a moment – before I shyly turned away.

Trying to forget the way you placed your hand on the small of my back.

Trying to forget the way you smelled as I sat next to you

and picked off the small green caterpillar from your shoulder, your black shirt warm in the early May sun.

Trying to forget your tan forearm and clean, strong hands next to mine: liking the looks of them and wanting them for myself.

Trying to forget that August evening we walked back to your car together,

through the trees, darkened by the fading daylight.

Trying to forget the time you gently placed your hat on my head:

me, laughing while trying to make it fit right;

you, wondering if it fit at all.

Trying to forget, months later, seeing her hold that hat as

she waited for you, unsure, until you came back and stood beside her, completing something I saw so clearly it hurt.

Trying to forget that it was really never more than these few, silent moments:

me, wanting them to signify something greater.

Searching for a connection, clinging onto any small piece of affection.

You, wanting someone who would listen, someone to fill her temporary absence.

Though she was not absent; you had just pushed her aside

in the face of rage and frustration.

Trying to forget your searching eyes as you hesitantly said goodbye while I wondered how much sincerity was behind them.

I still wonder.

The monsters

Still scared of the monsters under the bed,

or scared of feeling scared.

I try to avoid them, but doing so is pointless.

I find out soon enough that they’re just versions of myself.

Beauty

“Smile, beautiful girl.”

How can I frown, you wonder, when all you see is beauty.

But this thing you notice, that you call beauty, is not.

Beauty is not how I look today, not my hair, my skin.

This is too simple.

Beauty is confused by those who see it as power.

And yes, it is powerful in the face of those who fear what it might do to them.

But beauty is not something you can claim,

not something to keep by you for selfish reasons.

Because behind that beauty is a person,

a person whose beauty is difficult, is complicated, is vulnerable.

Her beauty is not just something to see. It’s something you know, you learn, you feel.

Beauty is not just another, to be found elsewhere.

Perhaps you see it as a distraction and then treat it as such.

Beauty is not just the curve of a back.

It is an interaction: the touch, the feeling, the knowing.

Beauty cannot just be her pretty face, something that distracts you for a fleeting moment.

How could something so superficial, something you will forget tomorrow, be beautiful?

Real beauty lingers. It is felt, it is shared.