Photo by Mekea Larson
The parade glitters down Fifth Avenue. Chance and dancing, breast-bearing
and sweat. My roommate is leaving the city today. She is too young for a breakup
so bitter,
too young for a merciless panic on the downtown 5. But there she is,
Band-Aid on her temple, Bloody Mary in her hand. I sit meekly,
sipping iced coffee in a slick furniture showroom
with a few friends and strangers, looking over
the brass bands and roller-skating drag queens and the man, probably seventy,
wearing a ball sling and a bandanna. I—we—are stained
by small, nice places. The personality quizzes on Elizabeth Johnson’s old Dell
told me I embody individuality, crave uniqueness, like a peacock
or Luna Lovegood. In another life, I couldn’t afford
an obsession with selfhood. Elizabeth, the child of older parents,
had the basement all to herself. Her dad Bruce painted it lime green. Natives
call us fresh,
as if we’ve been plucked from comely orchards. Pure rubes.
I wrote a poem about the prettiness that spills off the L. My teacher said
the simple fact of youth is beautiful, and the fact was a comfort.
Later I was troubled by the vision of every green girl in the city aged,
terrified of windows. Mistakes unmade, bad eggs unsung. I don’t have to worry
about an errant child. So I invent one: my friend, the one the city scolded
and shattered. I pray over her room when she’s away, like a mother, begging.
- Merrill Lee Girardeau
Photo by Mekea Larson
Follow: @mekealarson