her children
one day she stopped at the market
where her old lover once had a stand
the lolling red of tomato
the serenade of bell pepper
the seduction of cilantro and cashew fruit
o! what a time they had!
         as curfew came and passed
         she found the
         sidewalk again
it was not too difficult
it was right where she had
left it that one day
         so many years before
         when the sirens came out
         and the vegetables
         learned to grow in
         the colors of march
no, it was not too difficult
and when she picked up
her feet
they were
         they were her
         children
tall children
         though not quite
as tall as they used to be

you would not recognize her
she is a hurricane filter
a richter scale
the contents of a secret bag
hidden in a lingerie drawer of
planned confession and
careful compromise
 
inside her right hand
she carries a prepaid response
inside her left a change purse
of identities
 
she blows leaves to the
air as she walks
on her mind
a list of casualties
in her stride
a pen to check
unopened boxes
 
you would not
recognize her
 
in her hair
an army of lice and
city pollution
in her shorts
a brigade of
tourists with foreign accents
 
she is a fire escape
a mathematician
a physicist
a politician
a pressure cooker of unchained recipe
and the doubled-over flags of pride
 
in the stretch of her trunk
golden lava fresh from the
core of the earth
 
in the bough of her arms
each revolution the moon
dreamt of and was denied 

 
thirty days later
thirty days later
he moves thick feet in hot mud
he was once an orphan
but is no longer
 
now, he is a crab drifting
inside his brother’s hat
 
This, he says, is not the river  —
it is water
 
a hat in a river that runs
counter current or on its side
far from people who run
along the shore peering into
the water in search of crabs or
orphans or young men named Carlos
 
“Bet you can’t swim across
that river, Carlos.”
 
“You bet I can!”
thirty days later
he is a crab drifting
in a hat where his brother
still swims upstream
in defiance
                 far from
that place called
forward where
boats carry lies to
no family with no home
to receive them
 

 
his meteors, his sea
he is not a man anymore
he is the ocean at midnight
high tide on low shore
a balcony of late-night conversation

in his body there is dark sky
light sand
red words —
words that curl
then unbend then curl
then unbend along
his infinite blackboard

he is the ocean behind him
he is the balcony in front of him
he is cigarette embers in a
dance of swirls and dashes

he is an ember
now neon lights
he is another
now meteor shower
he is a ball of dialogue
mixed with saltwater
and seaweed

he breathes
he pulls it all in
the balcony across the street
the ocean at his back
the sand below his feet
like a fishing boat of meteors at deep sea
 

out of the egg yolk shavings of an emperor
when i crawl out i will be a breaking weather system
i will crawl until i am a perfectly shaped round breast
in the center of my own hurricane oyster
again
when i crawl out
out of the staged battle
out of the conscious nightmares
out of the sleeping insomnia
out of the cold glaring nudity of your sun
i will be a monolith of marble swimming
a coliseum of the tide

i will crawl out
of the barred bottle
of the painted humility
of this note card and staple and paper clip monastery
out of the half-fried egg runny yolk of your vast shadow
your dominant violin tuning
your lampshade oppression
out of your bubble gum jealousies
and bottle opener teeth

out of your five-hundred ton fascist chains of government
and its innumerable unpredictable constitutions without constituents

and i will be, i will be, i will be — i will not hide
between creased pages anymore
i will not be an estranged compliment fallen
from the door hinge of an emperor
nor the violence of insult shavings on a chocolate cream pie
i will be white noise
the sound of static
the ocean in a shell on a beach in the ocean
and no matter how long you search amidst the sands
raking with your crab pinchers and your sting ray hands

you will never find me again

Courtney J. Campbell