I.
The lust for meaning as the world ends?
Astonishing. Like the hunger for it
embarrassing almost.
 
Need for language,
closeness,
diets still.
 
Our air smells like rabbits now:
their fur fresh, eyes wide,
lips tucking.
 
Don’t mind the
sparrows at early morning,
their tiny feet jaunting the rooftops.
 
II.
The up of our buildings,
down of our meals,
inside wide of the water pouring out
 
of faucets.
It’s the same water as it is was is
onwards, forever.
 
Sappho licked the bathwater,
June Jordan swam in the water for tea,
Mick Jagger breathed the riverwater
 
(it washed his hair the single
time he washed his hair
in the entire decade of the 70s).
 
III.
Snow in the park,
Hank in his snowsuit at the
playground that Anzia has
 
their first memories at.
My neck growing sore from his
two year old weight on my
 
shoulders. A real snowstorm
in the northeast in January.
A cold day, long johns day.
 
IV.
It rains. Margery Kempe rain.
The rain that fell into her spine
as she fucked Jesus
 
on their way to Bethlehem—
Mary watching.
God, too.
 
Rain that spins and turns
on sidewalks and into gutters
who in my neighborhood cold
 
in these freezing nights?
 
V.
Misty meaning
Misted meaning
Curled and relentless meaning
 
The touching of the water
The torching of the linens
The weaving of the garlands
 
In the forest—
sex under trees, pine needles in pussy.
All that water. Rain.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
AIDA MURATOGLU is a poet and essayist living in Brooklyn, NY, whose work has previously appeared in or is forthcoming from pan-pan press, Hot Pink Mag, the Lavender Review, and the Critical Flame.