J.L. Conrad

Three Poems by J.L. Conrad

North Beach

Blue is the color of evening:
we pass through clouds lying close

to earth. The city is yellow
like the irises of eyes.

A carved tiger in a second-story window
watches the market crowd depart

bearing pink bags filled
with jars of gingered mango slices.

It has been Saturday
all year long. Inside the Black Rose,

someone is playing a saxophone.
Sun falls, and this time,

no green tints the horizon
at the water line. I say, ‘The train only stops

for a minute.’ We wait an hour
on the street; the old man in the alley

stretches out a hand to us
and disappears.

August

Let the poem emerge,
you tell me. Bring it out

as moon draws the darkness
under trees, as gaping streetlights

line your eyes
with bands of light.

We are standing on a bridge,
have been standing on the same bridge

since August five years ago
when you said, kiss me so I will

remember. My hands
caught the rail behind

as you pulled — the paint, red,
had blackened by night.

I pressed your hands
as I would two poems,

noted their exact texture
and weight,

the way they found me
rigid. And trembling.

I knew I would remember
a scrape of gravel

like the words I could not say,
the car’s taillights

receding into the hot summer
dark. Tonight, you walk

the page with me,
wearing the body

as you would a coat.
I will write it down.

Outside the Church of John Coltrane

Sunday morning:
and the church not open,
gated instead with swirls of wrought
iron and tile breaking
like teeth from the mosaic —

a woman and child
behind the window: plate glass
with raw edges taped together
drapes shadow in spidery
arcs over the walls.

A shopkeeper reads from a book,
her lips move trails
of incense — a man wears
yellow shoes; the city
glitters like a hundred eyes.

In this light, longings
are brushstrokes — swaths of color
looped across the sidewalks...

each soul is a pigeon in the flock
swooping low over the square.

The grit of the world on the street —

a woman in a red dress falls
into the arms of a man
wearing a navy blue shirt,
and music converges

like fire on the wings of a bird
or water on palm fronds
after the rains —

shadows pass
over the metal grate
at the bottom of the stairs.

And only one
who is like an unripe persimmon
may enter.

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J.L. CONRAD is currently studying in the Creative Writing program at American University with Henry Taylor and Myra Sklarew. She is a poetry editor for Folio, the literary magazine published by American University.

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