rio

 

 

you grip like lonely telemarketers

 

fragile in the cubicles of alabama

 

or sickly birds

 

who protect their investments

 

with spit

 

one day i will bring my line

 

back to the river of january

 

i will walk shaken favelas

 

while bleeding lime juice

 

coaxed out by beaks of sickly birds

 

i will lose backgammon matches to street kids

 

bullshit drunk in every corner café

 

i will grow a beard & a habit

 

develop a permanent outermost skin layer

 

made of dirt & atomic glue

 

i will wear my best pair of glazed irises

 

whenever something tries to hold my attention

 

 

 

i am far from the river of january

 

i have hidden all my other ages

 

with the cunning of a matrioshka

 

i open a mandolin case full of copper strings

 

i think about humidity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audri Sousa runs a sort of paradoxical hermit commune in California and enjoys panda bears as bears but also as musicians. She has taken up painting for the 238th time. She has work forthcoming in word riot, decomp, abjective, breadcrumb scabs and dogzplot.