JENNIFER CLARVOE
2217 Platenstrasse
I go back by counting lampposts out of the fog -
seven is the length of the street by morning,
bottle-green posts against the gray. Shining,
the posts will spill the light before the street,
the street before the vegetable man's cart
delivers his bright fruit.
Blutorangen,
oranges bruised garnet; and,
Zuckermelone,
we learn to click and pucker over the dark
small watennelons. Yes, we buy the vegetables,
but the names, the colors, are gifts. He saves
Blumenkohl
for Timothy who is teething. Cauliflower,
flower cabbage,
Blumenkohl.
Given -
but how do we hold them? We kids just won't eat
brussels sprouts we bought as
Rosenkohl.
Before dinner, we can't help it, we argue names,
any names,
Bully, Cry-baby,
racketing out
into the street, where we sing over each other
Don't run over me! don't
nm
over me -
in true kid's cadence, hot, indefatigable
see-sawing scorn - so that the random traffic
screeched with us. And how we needed that screech,
the song about our danger - so we could chase
danger, as if each car hauled in a future
we didn't want, some name, the engine feeding
us to plugs, cranks, shocks - chase it through the frame
in the old home movie that catches in the projector,
flares and caramelizes, burnt out to the edges
