“Where I Turn Bad” by Michelle Bonczek
Thursday, July 10th, 2008Spring 2008, Volume 32, Number 1
| I start thinking of flammable material, the kind | ||
| we buy cheap from India | ||
| but then I remember my grandfather’s story | ||
| about a chapel carved out of salt. White steeple, white | ||
| door, white people. We’ve been here way too long. | ||
| So when the light changes, I speed | ||
| until you and I glide | ||
| over the freshly laid road, the smooth road | ||
| we fucked into existence, only you | ||
| are not in the car and the white line that splits | ||
| the road in half, reminds me of how | ||
| we cannot live without salt. But this all has to do | ||
| with the road. I light a cigarette, change | ||
| the subject, only I do not have cigarettes | ||
| and don’t smoke. The road is black | ||
| like someone else’s lungs. The cilia grow | ||
| hard, like art, from the tar. Sculptures, scars, bread. The road. | ||
| The turn I made at the light is illegal. But it’s the one | ||
| that brought me | ||
| to you. I’m illegal not because I’m too young | ||
| or because I’m a virgin in some country | ||
| where virginity is collateral for land, or wine, | ||
| or salt, a country in which you are not a king or a pirate | ||
| washed ashore a beach whose shells tongue your ear | ||
| when you’re not listening. | ||