HALF HOUR ENGAGEMENT – chapbook , 2021
big hugs usps
to think I have taken this walk before
home to post office
post office to home
and have not fallen once
while walking as I read
in this parcel,
this waltz of limbs working,
I imagine carrying myself on for eternity
as I open each envelope
and read the content of my life
as I am simultaneously living it,
and reliving it
this here delicate man
his method of planting
a seeds
is to launch them by fist-
full into
mostly compacted soil
individual
threads of life
he steps on top of them
to secure their stay
steel toed boots
with untied laces
the lawn grows
despite rugged invitation
his green sea of success
a reflective surface
to gaze upon
his own brilliance
staring right back at him
just outside
his window
if each seed had been kissed
before individual
pinched placement,
a soft pressing
into loose ground
blessed in place
by gentle touch
with barefoot well intention—
no one could say
that the grass would be greener
germination is not personal
emotionally it is unbranded
their seed bodies
unaware of anything
beyond how they are placed
that one time
they sit
without forecast
without expectation
of how their life should be
and what the world
will offer them
budding off
hips rose
your sharp
throne,
thorns
that sit
gently
your gentle
shape
a two sided
coin
older and
oxidized
by former
crutch, crush
I wish
I could
remember
the date
of every coin
I’ve ever touched
I leave you
a bowl of water
in the event you come home thirsty
when the moon is high
and outside there is someone
that needs it more than you do
(and is also more likely to stop by)
I sit at the window,
fogged and smudged.
it is difficult to reach every corner of a home
that is in a constant state of molting.
Chicago is very dusty
she observes the accumulation of particles
to be greater here than where she lived before
I can’t comprehend how it is measured
and so I say nothing in return
the moon wanes and waxes
I keep the bowl out
a stagnant fountain
to observe
no current
waves
or ripples
the 1/4-inch layer of soot
tide unpredicted
the surface of the water
tells me a lot about time
and the quality of the air,
the dust still
composed of pieces of you
even after
you have left.
bait;
like my breast floating
in a bath
wish it hung so
light
like an ocean buoy
guarding a lobster body
an underground trap
sealed shut
a small opening
feeding anyone
but the lobster
conference calls in the lecture room
the individuals in the room are discussing
the complexity of the human hand
and the brain’s ability to make sense
of low resolution video
the goal is to train
a computer like a dog
to recognize a hand
the discussant is considering
the complexity of the task of recognition;
the ability to perceive an object
with accuracy
despite its orientation, size, luminescence
We are good at it.
he argues
in the defense of computers
that hands are more sophisticated
than the human face; less homogeneous
“they are without consistency”
he doesn’t say much more
but we absorb
his sureness
a sign language interpreter,
sits stage right
weaving a narrative blanket
through three-dimensional space
I scan her hands
and then my own and then his.
it is then that I notice
he is missing the middle finger
on his right hand.
it is then that I realize
that the audience relies on her
to have ten fingers.
our attention is certainly on hands,
that much I understand
but if not on the hands in the room,
then whose?
we talk about them
as if they are separate organisms,
accoutrements, a gun,
something attached and also separate;
something we borrow and wear
at the same time.
the audience relies on her to have ten fingers,
and we rely on him for
?
the chute of life is good
I don’t feel jealousy often
but when I see undergoing construction
on the top floor of a building,
that large yellow slide
connecting the open window to the sidewalk
way down below,
I do experience something similar to jealousy.
on the top floor stands a man hurling items
of which he holds no connection
down a chute in which they lead
into a receptacle that another man,
without connection,
will drag away
somewhere unrelated and far away
I do feel jealousy.
for the fall those items feel,
for the joy of the push,
and for the man
who gets to drive off
and not look back
back-to-back back-bones
my sister has had a birthmark
for as long as I can remember
south of her spine
the shape of a light leak, indented
like the braille on the elevator button
you touch as you travel to the upper floor of your apartment
I was born with a birthmark as well
a shade of pink
flesh with my skin
visual by sight only
a kiss the size of my adult lips
in my mind, and I say that because
I’ve never discussed this
out loud with my sister,
we were stamped with the same ink
when I locked eyes with the home
her birthmark made on her back
less pink each year
I felt similar to looking in a mirror after a fresh haircut
a new found appreciation for your own physical form
it wasn’t until I moved into a 100-year-old unit in Chicago
that I noticed the shape was printed in my mind
like a watermark.
standing in the shower,
in the textured glass that protected my naked body
from the gaze of those walking on the street
a repeating pattern, an abstract shape
coin-sized, also indented
three dimensional, hand-made,
I raised my palm to touch the glass
already sure of the texture
before I made contact.
in the sand feet in front of me,
burned due to negligence,
she gazed upon the shore,
I hoped that she would live forever
and that as we aged,
we would know exactly where on each other’s flesh
once lived a shape we both shared,
before they were absorbed by our bodies
and became a shared secret that lived
underneath our skin.
well rounded diet
vitamins & herbal remedies;
I don’t believe they work.
but on a shit day
I take a handful
I call on the
expired audience
of supplements
that sit in the stadium
living behind
my bathroom mirror
their diverse bodies
coated capsules
men’s multi
poor man’s T
liquid kelp
a trip to the sea
I close my eyes
and try to believe
in their ability to work
if taken consistently
which I’ll hold
up for a month
maybe two
before ultimately
I remember
it’s not worth
my time or
money
I.
the man repeats,
“girl, stay”
at least two dozen times,
as he attempts to command his dog
who is leashed
to my ears out of context
his words echo and transform into a mantra,
slow and rhythmic,
as the portal to his world opens for me
much larger than the section of grass in which he sits,
allowing me to imagine the many girls—
the ones he has asked to leave
and the many girls he has begged to stay
II.
waiting on the corner of 7th avenue & 32nd street,
I hear a man standing alone,
about ten feet away from me,
project his voice
like a cannon
“I have no idea what I’m doing in New York City.”
and I feel comfort in my bones
for the first time in a while.
the cicadas
sing their summer
screams
they compete
in the art of speaking
over one another
as I try
and fail
to remember
in what direction the sun rises
or sets for that matter
making it hard to indicate where the fuck I am
but only remembering how little I know
when asked
fruit stripe
his diet
consisting of sugar-free gum
and low calorie energy drinks
that he buys while the car
he’s left
unattended
sucks up the $4.67
a gallon
after gallon
back in the car
he unwraps
and uncaps
makes his way home
to the static of AM radio
fluctuating voltages
of taurine and spearmint
watching baseball
third inning
he slaps
his chew
underneath the coffee table
his woolgathering
uninterrupted by
the fine motor skills
required to fulfil thoughtless movement
the gum joins the conglomerate,
underneath
the putrid hall of spit
delicately outlined
multicolored
hedge stones
marked by his disinterest
the older pieces
give the new member
an acknowledging look
and they feel seen
in their depleted
tasteless body
all stashed
under the communal table
collecting the sounds of the communal space
the earth's crust
or whatever layer exists underneath it
(in this instance the underside of the
pressure-treated wood)
just above the sweat-filled carpet
he never cared
to move the table
when vacuuming
their contorted shapes
their edges altered
left hanging
resigned from former positions of importance
a crowd of near misses
empty words
emptied mouth
the inning is over
Ah….
the refreshing taste of a
new stick of gum
airfare cinema
I don’t turn off the music
entering both of my ears via headphones
as the flight attendants stand in the aisle
telling us what to do if we lose oxygen
or if we were to crash into a body of water.
I look up, but only to watch the choreography
you know, that dance,
the synchronized points and waves
the pulling of strings
the buckling of a disembodied seatbelt.
they are the airline’s marionettes
angels that do not work for the sky
they just know how it works
and what to do when it doesn’t.
I know at one point they will remind us
to help ourselves before helping others
I have to wonder what memory enters each of their minds
when they repeat this advice day in and day out.
who in their life simply takes too much
who takes and takes from the women
ripping the wings off their backs
while the women imagine that one day
when they will get all they have given,
handed back to them
as they recline in a teal plastic lawn chair,
holding a lemonade with a pink umbrella and two ice cubes,
as men fan them with large palm tree fronds.
that is, if they don’t go down in a plane
before that big day of reimbursement comes
if the sky works until then
Amy Winehouse sings as I drift off into a sky of my own
where I take a seat and stare
into a mirror that rests at the bottom of a shallow pond
and she stares back at me and mouths,
“so tired,
I’m so damn tired”
botulinum
she was not a doctor but she had absorbed a lot of information
both in passing and in seminars.
she knew it well.
she could regurgitate the ingredients and subtleties of each medication;
chemically and functionally
I am confident that if this was not her access to income,
her access to a state of mind that during a good quarter,
allowed her to buy her kids
that one special thing,
she would not have chosen to fill her finite brain with such content.
being her child,
I grew up with a heightened awareness of my skin;
its immortality, its senescence, its beauty.
I learned in great detail
how my youthful face would age
and sag and how each feature
could be a future investment
if I so desired a cosmetic route,
if I should choose to not let my skin fold
and melt at its own pace,
I knew I could purchase my older face injections
I could see a surgeon
and they would tell me
they loved my mother dearly
as they touched the skin on my face.
flow agent
the purchase of a bird
perpetually positioned
within bars
without warning
clipped wings
to suit her
incongruous crypt
in which she is perched
withering
within
her own mind
she will sing
but only when
she knows
she won’t be heard
her hereditary heath
imagined within the nape
of her bird neck
she waits
endlessly
flat
my car
now one thousand dollars more of a car
than it was before I paid someone to fix it
my bike
one dollar more of a bike than
before we filled up my bike tires today
and you paid for it
so I could ride out
on what more closely resembles
bricks
after a long day
when neither air is free
but the ride gets smoother
thanks to that seasonal leak
Dr MD, PhD
says It all comes down to bandwidth;
the size of your workshop
in a capacity sense—
the sensation of living
beyond your boundaries
within the walls of your
garden apartment
a borrowed burrow rented
rebranded for beauty
you fail the bandwidth test
twenty times and again
the error message, becomes stamped
on the underside of your eyelids
familiarly incomprehensible
bad request
invalid destination
forbidden &
unauthorized
the voice of the father
confidently comparing
his bandwidth to economics
he currency lacks
the funds
to listen to his kids
go on and on
the voicemail
my stepfather left
on my sister’s nokia
the transfer of an apology
via landline
muffled breathy speech
doctrine of latency
“....sometimes I experience
short circuits
in my brain…”
their wires frayed
and unsorted
obvious to others
from other dwellings
on distant floors
scrambled seeking
good wireless connection
- - - - - - - - -
when you throw a football
for the first time
the path it moves along
resembles
the dashed line illustration
a child draws to represent
the movement of
a flying insect
an untied balloon, released
makes figure eights
throwing a spiral
requires precision
every time
not just sometimes
the laces
you were never
taught to tie
the way you position
yourself on earth
regardless
ants move on top
the green plastic turf
disguising itself as grass
the red checkered
picnic sheet background
a distant
picnic paradise
gripping your hand
on top of the leather and
laces now
the movements of the ants
underneath your feet
their path involving
little interference
curves or other
flat lined coordination
pheromone trail
tied and uncomplicated
you look forward
bend your knuckles just so
throw the football
tossing it perfectly
only for it to bounce
off of and back onto
the artificial
lawn
say, say nothing
It is easy
for unintentional pause
to be mistaken for complexity
a deliberately vague core
offering smudges
fabricates a narrative
for someone
seemingly uninterested
in writing their own
say that I find myself
captivated by silence
the living ambiance
two silhouettes
in silent sharing
share
the cause of depth
either-
a manhole
you imagined
to be on its way
to earth’s mantle
or-
a certain apathy
the crust flaking
shallow interior
walls peeling
more a vent
an exhaustion
neither-
on this plane
solid liquid gas
terrestrial or otherwise
on trial
for being boring
say, say nothing
I’m found to be fooled often
I’d rather someone
call me a bitch
than a boring one
juliaak.com 