Behind Persian Green Curtains
written by: Adriana Morgan
@Adriana39863076
Number Four hurries home
to his sick wife—spitting blood from tuberculosis
His legs sprint in a bossa-nova rhythm,
but his shadow lingers far behind, on a discordant note
of a broken harp
Number Eight scribbles verses in a scarlet notebook
with lemon hearts
Blooming plum trees shade the way
to her aristocratic lover—
the I’m too good for you—number Eighty-Five
I contemplate, fascinated, Number Nineteen
— noble octogenarian couple
Hand in hand, glorious smiles on their lips,
they advance, inseparable, in a Bessie Smith cadence
—two eternities mirroring each other in their eyes
Number Forty-Six are rowdy and raucous
Their cacophonic laughter disrupts my musings
while their ice-creams dribble between their fingers,
and Snow, my Siamese cat,
licks the sugary spots on the hot asphalt behind
The lavender dusk frames Number Thirty-Two
in a psychedelic aura, fizzling out their fight—
Frankly, who cares that quantum tunneling doesn’t apply to planets or stars?
I abandon them whirling in their Wagnerian sonata
No point in waiting for Number Seventeen anymore.
- ¡Olvídame! - August 1, 2021
- Behind Persian Green Curtains - April 23, 2020
- Silence! - February 29, 2020
