Asphalt                         Neil de la Flor, Maureen Seaton & Kristine Snodgrass

Forget the wherewithal, the suspicion, the gargling. Do it yourself.  I could sit down right now and pluck each fiber from the carpet, and assuredly they would all be a variant of gray. One would have a dog hair, one would have a cat hair etc.  I could spend my whole day plucking and just get down to the bone. (Don’t ask yourself if this is a metaphor.  No, it’s literal for sure.)  The bone and the concrete. But, where would that leave my fingernails?  And the dishes with the grape jelly? And (as I write the asphalt in your parking lot is graying) who said anything about the sky? I shall start plucking the sky tomorrow.

the sky is broken

the sky is falling? no sweat

the sky is indeed falling bush says

the sky is blue and the sun seems yellow

the sky is too high

the sky is an immortal tent built by the sons of los

the sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue to your eyes more than they

             scatter red

the sky is not falling

the sky is blue during the day

the sky is filling

the sky is blue because it has never been plucked

this time the gray gentleman went to the barn

this time the sky screamed immortal sins

this time he broke the doctor’s advice

this time the dog built an edifice in red

this time the blue sun is literally

this time the concrete is bone

this time his eyes were the size of molecules

this time he smashed grapes

then the tents turned purple

then the blue darling started to cry

then the molecules spoke to the boned grapes

then there was no more resistance

then nothing was too high

then something yellow burned my eye

then the concrete became god

then the concrete god gave us the green light

From there we plucked the space between ethics, a wicked sticky clench of a place never before explored or expunged, although we all expatriated, and that was how the asphalt thing began to develop. You can see where I’m going with this.