Wax Cups The bridge over the Long Island Expressway was a jackdaw cutting through holiday traffic. a father flanked by young daughters, McDonald’s sodas in hand, bundled in winter coats, watched the cars below. The daughter to the left, her ponytail unfurling with flyaways at the temples— in middle school we called them “wings”— jumped, pointing at cars, as we slipped along underneath. They were 495 East sentinels celebrating a winter ritual. Years from now, with the snow falling sideways, they’d recall icy hands pressed against waxy cups, while the world sped under their feet— their dad in the center of it all. Museums exist, hovering over small towns, contained entirely in watching bodies. We tread well-traveled paths until we reach the bridges suspended above our childhood. “Remember?” the girl in the pink coat will ask her winged sister, and they’ll see times they didn’t know were sacred until much later. Jane-Rebecca Cannarella (she/he...
Line by line retranslation of Ashbery Waiting makes time democratic, you just said so Then a white horse ran by, repeatedly running back and forth Like a messenger passing straight through various rooms from the front door Out through the back door, I waited like this for twenty-seven years. Initially it was the honey of distortion brewed in the rooms distorted in your convex mirror And that gesture was both an invitation and a refusal Unfolding for me a moment that fluctuated incessantly A crack that exists, the circulation of water in the ocean A ring formed by a self-devouring serpent in motion In between is the void filled with power This mirror of others reflects oneself at the same time Allows all the images of leaves stacked in the depths of the mirror to remain Like a demon in a bottle floating on an infinitely transparent surface Longing for the light of your face, symbolic stones They only stop temporarily in order to focus Forming some kind of meaning, then they are qu...