and you’ll know the building not by shape but
by touch, a too-soft floor, I don’t know how
to tell stories in the deliberate way and now I’m
always wondering why I need to, why can’t I
tell you about the bed soft as scallop shell, beneath
her voice and smell still are draped over a cross
you’ll know what I mean, why do you need
to talk about the waffle down the street, how it
was square, barely visible beneath whipped cream
and the water bagels are good as edible halos
why do I need to say the name, why don’t you
know when I talk about dewy, bright green and
people are still biking in March and April, you
should know this, the Ferris wheel now gone, once
stood in front of edible bubble stands, the apartment
is owned by a venomous man who turns his head
at the rats crawling through the walls, it’s hot in
the summer, there is no heat in the winter, they took
the radiator, do I have to say it, the smooth marble
Christ statue behind low bars steps in empty beer
cans and someone brings him flowers, don’t you
know the mica and blood in the alley, the bodega
cat is pregnant again, I am sober in the late-night deli,
why do I have to say it, that I remember you, can’t you
know based on the way I order eggs, my hands are
brushing against the wrist of a young chef whose
tattoo of a jukebox looks startlingly like a drawing I once
eyed on your wall, from streetlamp hang plastic
snowflakes, blue and holographic in rush hour, don’t
you know the woman who sells sheets of almond
chocolate, her store tucked between a knick-knack
emporium and an umbrella-hardware-soap-notebook
seller, I once bought balloons there—you know—yes but
did I tell you I released them into Central Park after my
mom told me to die, she slammed the old door in my face,
it was once red then green now gray, I recognize the
familiar chime of the doorbell in television shows and
I think to myself, too often, of you.
–
Sam Moe is the first-place winner of Invisible City’s Blurred Genres contest in 2022 and the 2021 recipient of an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Her first chapbook, Heart Weeds, is out from Alien Buddha Press, and her second chapbook, Grief Birds, is out from Bullshit Lit. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram as @SamAnneMoe.