Ajax Kallistrate

i want to be
your
girlfriend
boyfriend
your
he
she
your
number one
your
miss mister
sir
ma'am
i am
and
you could be
my
girlfriend
boyfriend
my
he
she
my
number one
my
miss mister
sir
ma'am
i am
i love what
i am.

December 2, 2018

Medusa with a hairpin
becomes me
muffled up
with a smile
and a book.
Pigeons
settling
in a forest
of vacant faces
caught
in the act
of turning away.

July 16, 2018

and the sun sinks
behind black lace
and chain link
and for one breath
my heart is free
of winter
and rises up
above gold shot
cloud into
blue sky

February 2020

palest blue
slate clouds
like a distant sea
i wanted to dabble my fingers
in warm water
but i was on my way to work
in a city consumed by
small problems
in a room consumed by
small problems
in a heart consumed by
small problems
smallest
meanest
meaningless problems
collapsing down
into a salt plane
where no green
leaves
grow

February 2020

i looked away
for a moment
from that tiniest flash of
white and pink
against the pale morning sky
and lost what had been touched
by a sun that had not yet
touched us

January 2020

shame is the sound
of rain
on wet pavement
sliced through
by car tires
shhhhhhh! rain
overflowing
pooling
sluicing
choked down
gullies and ditches
washing out
constellations
of garbage
that glitter in the sun
blinding me with
garbage
that glitters in the sun

May 4, 2018

i like bus people
poor people
like me
i like to listen
to fathers with babies
children with mothers
shift workers
regulars
drifters.

i listen
to their stories
of prison time and
chronic illness and
eviction and
homelessness,
to the jokes and laughter
to the young and the very young
to the old and the old spirits
to the lost middle-aged
like me
with a new job
with homework on their knees
reinventing themselves.

i like how we wait
with patience and grace
for mobility devices
making room, moving back
i like how we shout Wait!
Wait! someone is running
to catch the bus
for a shift or
a class or
a court date or
maybe they're just
running from where they are
and it doesn't matter where
they go.

it doesn't always matter
to me.

the places i knew,
closed up
and silent
the people i knew,
closed up
and silent.

only the bus
puts on its lights
for me
reaches the curb
and kneels
for me
folding open
to receive me
enclose me
shelter me
from wind and rain
and snow and ice
to take me away
or toward
the glow of a window
or a table between
me and strangers
who find me
wanting
where i want to be
or don't
even when
it doesn't matter.

October 2019

i wish that i could say that i
had made a string of friends.
alas, i didn't know to knot
and they all slipped off
the ends.

April 29, 2020

short walk
long ride
long walk
long shift
long walk
long ride
short walk
and tomorrow i have to do laundry

July 25, 2020