it is after all only a folding
Ryder Collins
city. & it is Goodwill where you left it. where you met
me. where you left me enfolded in that city looking for ramen
& Brahmins. for miso and meditation.
there was neither & you coulda told me if your mouth
wasn’t full up with the taste of ether & your hands weren’t numb from
making hourglasses out of snow. no
it was lilies out of snow.
no it was lilacs.
no it was
lilies of the valley. no it was
valleys & dewey dells & pharmacists. i jaywalked
towards plucked ducks in a windowfront. they were singing
caution caution gogo stop,
upside down. you were already
nuzzling another tourist. you were already nuzzling
a street corner. you invented stop & go
lights to direct my longing. yellow
yellow green flash red. the ducks
were a chorus & the buildings of your city
all did jazz hands. there was folding
& the snow around me did strange
flower origami or something.
Ryder Collins has a novel, Homegirl!, available from Honest Publishing Press. Her work has also been published in Wigleaf, > kill author, DIAGRAM, The Southeast Review, and Fix It Broken, and elsewhere. She has a chapbook of poetry, Orpheus on toast. Some of her work can be found here: http://www.honestpublishing.com/books/homegirl/
