“Repetition is not rhyme, missy.”
Elizabeth Bachinsky
I am a winning personality.
My personality is Paleozoic:
sea urchin, horn lantern
with the panes of horn
left out. My personality glows
like a lantern aglow
for the last few million years
or so. My face is alive.
My face cloudy as a cluster
of cherry blossoms face-down
in a puddle of discarded rain. I pull
up from the dead pile, drenched,
petals in-tact. At home, a swishy pink
wave from the corner of the room
as the petals dry in the radiator’s shunty
updraft. No longer my face,
just a quivering dumb bouquet
with a couple of buds clenched tight
as fists about to fist bump me. Never
my face in the first place. Everything
will eventually collapse from rain-work
& other festivals of weather unless
I’m there to breathe it in. Herein
lies evidence of my winning personality. I study
the urchin’s briny nature for tips
on how to outlast even the chilliest
millenia. Cold shoulder,
Baby says, giving me the cold shoulder.
