3 Poems Julia Cohen


Curtains


Retrograde memories of heavy
traffic confused by light.

At the intersection, the pugilist
knocks out the stop sign.

We are 15 miles from Cobalt.

Novellas and nicotine, a kink
in the brain cog.

The mailman brings an operetta
to the borrowed housewife.

We are 15 miles from Cobalt.

Rapid divisions of vapid staples:
our pill-tangled throat.

My under-world is quicker
than your hell.

We were 15 miles from Cobalt
when the curtain fell.



WATERPROOF GOODBYE


I’VE REVIVED THE LOST ART OF THE TELEGRAM
TO SAY PAPER KEEPS FOLDING ITSELF
INTO ORIGAMI AIRPLANES STOP TO PLANT
IN YOUR HAIR LIKE THE PAPER SHEATHS
FROM STRAWS WE’VE BLOWN AT STRANGERS IN DINERS
STOP I’VE INHALED YOUR COOKIE BREATH AND NOW
I’M HOOKED STOP THE CEILING FAN SPUN YOU
LIKE A PINWHEEL WHILE I MONKEYED ON THE PAPER MOBILE
CALDER MADE STOP BUT YOU WROTE ME OUT
OF THE SCRIPT STOP TAKE A NOSEDIVE AS A GESTURE STOP

WHEN YOU LEFT I FELT THE MUFFIN TINS STOP
THEY WERE STILL WARM STOP YOU TRANSPORTED
BAKED GOODS VIA A SUBMARINE CONVERTED
FROM WATERPROOF NEWSPAPER STOP
I AIRED OUT THE HOUSE TO LOSE THE WEIGHT
OF THE RAIN FROM ONE HUNDRED SAD SCENES
IN THOSE HOLLYWOOD MOVIES STOP A TELEGRAM
DOESN’T DO JUSTICE TO YOUR LISPING
OF “THPAGHETTI WETHTERN” STOP BUT I WILL STILL RIDE
THE MECHANICAL BULL INTO THAT SUNSET STOP EVEN
WHEN, MATHEMATICALLY, THE REMAINDER IS ONE



The Coast
for A.G.

I.
You bluff a mirage
of motion: akin
to sitting more
than standing,

swinging legs
more than sitting
still. You draw

me akimbo
shifting between
parentheses.

From the wide end
of a telescope
the door is a corridor.

II.
Even a child
is not invisible.
You seek a clear

coast to peak
around the earth
back to the back

of your head. The tether
loosens with every
tug. The secret is
there is no tether.

I see a field
or a vineyard
and past that-

III.
We are too little
time to hibernate
before displacing dirt.

If I could stamp
out all the “ifs”
and twist them
into naught. If

it is wet, we
are permeable.
Left to drown
or hydrate.

But my palms
hold a paper boat.
Tug to reach
the paper boat.

The secret is
there is room
at the helm,
and past that