role-play
No one is satisfied. Everyone is confused. The elegant
Japanese man smokes until his long hair
resembles the gray around him. How
the girl illuminates into Taylor Swift, a doused
humility in southern blonde. Some have tried
to build the bridge from one side of town
to the other, but the streets meet uneven at the river
to arrest the future. When hands press
to hands with a paper between,
it is a way to commit to the dance.
The Japanese man dusks his cigarette
at the side of the river. His hair,
the sun emergent, and fingers laced
around cigarettes are obvious emblems
of a night apart: when folded over themselves,
this configuration becomes a crane.
The design takes talent, but in perfection
these wings will arch and extend
like the voice of Taylor Swift. Across the limelight
from her angelic teenage figure,
a reflection hits the page of music
and she picks it up. Some fall together while others
come apart. All the construction workers
of 1846 were born unfortunate, their fingers fated
to a life of groping at the edges of arms
that didn’t match, shoulders given to skew.
Draining the river was meant to make things better.
The swallow is a species nearly kin
to the swift, not for biological
reason but still aerial, the fastest fliers
in the animal kingdom. The fortunes of one body
may touch the fortunes of another. Only convergent
evolution brings them together, as living
in a shared space gives a feeling of similarity.
At times the joints set in bridges
do not match up, waiting for a contact
that disappoints. What frightening tendrils
turn out of smoke and halfway across the dancing scene
become the hair of a faceless southern blonde? Extension
to the precipice, Taylor Swift said, then stop
like fingers on opposing sides
of a sun-cut strip of origami may think
they touch by mere hot pressure felt
along the page. In frontier towns men danced
like this once, one playing at girl, hands splayed
flat against each other without contact.
The Japanese man watches smoke meet air
then unfolds himself into the dark.
Jay Deshpande
