Everyone Has Lint and Other Tiny Things That Stick to Them by Leia K. Bradley

Everyone Has Lint and Other Tiny Things That Stick to Them
Leia K. Bradley

This kind of loneliness makes me feel just right
like someone remembered to light the candles, like someone
was able to convince me one day I’d see a luna moth up close,
maybe even realize my own dream of becoming bioluminescent.

This Tuesday I saw a child eating pennies and I thought
what a way to get some luck inside you—
I had been carrying avocado pits around in my purse.
Some ancient charm for fertility, for love

and since I aim to be childless, well, I was hoping the love would
grow green as overripe mush, that I could spoon it out
and slather it all over something burnt
and it would be made soft, that I would be made palatable

—just enough to go down clean. Downtown, my purse gets stolen
but the kind thief leaves me my passport and my cigarettes, so really,
I could still go anywhere and die at the same time, waiting for planes.
These days I am shrugging through absurdity. I am sitting at the piano and banging

out notes that sound like a very angry whale. But it’s okay, you know,
an old man told me the secret to seeing in the dark is just to
find a good pair of sunglasses and wear them at night.
I am putting on my fishnets to go on another walk, again I am

unashamed of the odd shape of my days:
crying myself awake
to water my roots, deflowered
every time I remember there is no ley line named Grief,

that I do not have to put my witch hands to that dirt;
I do not have to charge it back up.
Pain can be dormant and it can still be real.
Time feels gray, yes, but I am turning corners, noticing noticing

that purple-coated woman buying maple syrup
from a farmer with a beautiful bushy eyebrow,
the sound of a saxophonist meandering down the way crooning beauty so golden
I sit on the sidewalk for a long while remembering that feeling of awe, yes,

I do fall in love with every fantastic nose I ever see. Hopeless, you know?
I think it must be impossible to know how many petals make a sunflower glow that bright
and I pray that one day I can stop picking myself apart
under the guise of getting any answers.