Carolina could squish her face into the start
of a public works project—train tunnel
being dynamited into a cliff wall,
the look of a quarry yet to come,
then I’d know I could leave the Chili Pepper
easily as a desert island. She whirled out
in a hornblow wind of scarves and parakeet wings
to smoke a cigarette and get over the brain freeze,
outside, from two quick margaritas. Posts the claim,
“That’s why there’s tears!” for everyone to see.
Alone and sweet, without too much wine,
she could pull you by the hand out of the river
onto the bank, in the sun, with flowers
just being flowers as if that’s the way
it always was, but you forgot because
you distrust all the things of spring.
“What I need is somone to change the past,”
she whispered once, shrieked twice.
Little chili pepper lights were spread across
the booth seat she had emptied back to pine.
A good friend of back doors, one appears.
I wait again for hurt people to heal,
as if there were resurrection seasons
for us, too, and not just plants.
It’s not proof that Carolina wants,
it’s more proof. I pay the bill. Find her.
And it’s like I arrive right on time
for the city’s newest, saddest face,
and tell her that, yes, it’s all true.
In Carolina’s name, I’ll still attempt
the trick of changing what’s been done,
thinking maybe somehow I did it, and
yesterday, everything was different.
The blue bank building is now black,
there's just one sun today,
and Carolina completed a To Do list,
the demolition crew gone from her gaze.
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