By Amy Simone Piller
Two pigeons
like New Yorkers
kick up yellow leaves
A mouse saunters
across my kitchen
Some days our roles need to go
We cannot always hold
supposed to stance
By Amy Simone Piller
In a cooking class
students make banana pudding
I watch from the sidelines
imagining the soccer mom
I will someday be
The atmosphere of a slumber party settles in
giggling and turn taking
I ask if they like baking
Someone says she loves to bake cake
but that’s only if her mother gets food stamps
Others nod along
I will my facial muscles
to conceal any sort of pity
There is excitement in her voice
There is hope
By Amy Simone Piller
Feet have a way of getting tired
it might be neurons
they might know it’s unfair
If I were a foot
I would think it unfair often
Maybe feet are assholes
at the body part conventions
they just complain
Maybe feet don’t feel that way
they know their job is important
suck it up
grin and bear it
As a kid I watched Béla Károlyi
tell gymnasts
“suck it upâ€
My parents horrified
pre-reality TV
As far as lessons go it’s not bad though
to land on the balance beam
you just have to remember
it’s not everything.
By Amy Simone Piller
One day Literal and Figurative meet for coffee
They sit at a table near the stained wall
spattered with coffee though the latte swirls perfect
Scratched tables lead literal to launch into lacquer
all the while figurative listens disinterested
thinking about gentrification and signifiers
They both forget to savor the egg sandwich
the word pontificate swells in the mouth
like parachuting is only for the few
The vista the road-stop the view
How does one gain distance and presence?
Inherently schizophrenic to be and see at once
By Amy Simone Piller
A little fissure explodes a puppy at the door
you know me I know you Hello hello hello
I would not say we were friends
We also were not not friends
So it is strange to see you at a party
remembering the time and time and time before
When we were younger and it was scandalous
to even party or have beer in our small hands
The precipice of so many decisions
the modest obstacle of taking a major
the trepidation over what I wore
Was is it good enough? still lingers
We’ve made it from someplace to here
the thirty-something apartment landscape
This is no small miracle this is now
with new modest obstacles we do not yet know to be modest
How are you and how did you make
all of those decisions that left us spinning here?
How is your ex? Are they married
with children? Are you reading my face for regret?
Did you think me better than him anyway?
Or he than me? Are you wondering if I am happy?
I am hoping you are I feel proud you seem to be
I have no right to feel this pride
but you are so one piece solid strong
I want you to be everyone’s story
still smiling the same way
with a beautiful lady on your arm
Thank you world
for delivering us
to this Hello
to these agains and again
By Amy Simone Piller
It smells like fried chicken
Carved fossils relieve the walls
A new baby boards the train
Laura Ashley blanketed
Gold purse adorned mom
snapping photos of everything
possibility flashing
A grown man slumps
asleep, alone, lost
So much proximity
So little noticing
So little cross
By Amy Simone Piller
On my way to work
a little girl leans
on her father
on a brick wall
by the bus stop
I pass a stranger
who is not a stranger
our commutes cross paths
most days
On his bike he waves
though intersections loom
When days pass
without him I worry
I should have shouted
Hello
how are you?
Two girls partake in mediation at school
they fought one brought a knife to school
Both cry about fathers lost
drugs
alcohol
abandonment
They are sorry
they never knew
what the other
was going through
A new woman appears on our route
She does not yet say hello
but I think about her too
and all the things unsaid
all the new kids at school
What is sturdy?
And for whom?
By Amy Simone Piller
Something scintillating
in someone’s glance
As they pass eyes allowed
to enter penetrate
No words no sounds
simple senses timidly testing
A glance goes un-owned
to take to make one’s own
Unknown you have just found me
the most beautiful woman you have ever known
I saunter down the corridor
reassured by the mysteries of in-between
I am who I want to be
when you look at me
a little too long
By Amy Simone Piller
Every so often everyone thinks
the solution to traffic
is just get rid of the traffic lights
people would make the right decisions
often
Consequences re-surface moments later
like laughter
when friends have already gone
It is not funny
but you wish it was
You are laughing
and it is so sad
By Amy Simone Piller
On the way to work
sun illuminates one face of a building
the other side stays asleep
shaded from the morning rush
Further a crane reaches up
for the tangle of clouds
craving a storm
while stuck in order
Like adolescents
swaggering the dance floor
to little children
no control looks so appealing
In a city planter
lies a library book
and a discarded cup of coffee
Someone gave up
on the systems
Caffeine is hard to take
when being awake
seems senseless