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Children of the Anxious City

by Al Russell

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1.
Music Box 00:59
It was very small, at first. Then, we looked into it and saw our mothers' faces in the gold filigree, fish-mouthed, weeping at what we had done. Then, a wave of tinny violins overtook us like giant white naked bats. The kitchen got smaller and smaller, the sound got bigger and bigger, music filled the room, a handful of falling icicles trickling to a halt— no more music, then. It swallowed all our whole eyes; we were left unblinking, slicing carrots mid-chop, upset buttermilk carton and bloody fingers.
2.
Do any of us know the utter loving kindness of copper wires? They give such warmth, ask only in return that they be coiled up properly in storage. People are not always like that. In a fugue state I felt angel mutts licking my sore back with their halos I giggled, swooned, hoped, in this moment where all was right, the house might burn down and the cough drops might choke me to death.  
3.
Diana 00:35
shot someone today with a rubber suction cup dart in archery class then trekked red paint footprints like the ten of diamonds five peas to each diamond all over the top of abe lincoln at mount rushmore my dogs went with me too sniffed the paint as tho i had real-life shot the guy with a sharp arrow in the belly then danced around in his blood like making wine i'll admit i wanted to he was being a real asshole tho abe lincoln's all right by me
4.
Do not just blast it away. We’ll need it in the coming months. Everything will crumble, ash explosions fluttering dollar bills from out the molten sky will be our currency. Better than this rain. Do not just chuck it from the wall plug-in, putz its cord across the room, hissing, canny. Like an old ham radio, I’ll need it sooner or later, to see if anyone is still out there after the gates creak open and my nostrils fill with head-aching sea water. I can’t swim, not for that long.
5.
Ask yourself at dawn how faces can fade from memory easily as a human body deteriorates, eaten by cells multiplying as they feed. There are people gone or dead or fucked off somewhere; thinking of them too hard is like looking at the sun, blurs their faces so you can’t see their long noses, the ways their eyes are set, or hear their pitchy/resounding voices. They are blank skin-colored ovals who may have said worthwhile things. Ask their memories which of those things you might have missed, but you can’t think how they might answer (crinkling foreheads, whale… before each pause) then Roger Daltrey’s face, coming up through iron-pinned sand, struggles to keep metal grains from its open mouth and a voice talks at you and says, “This. This. This.” From the ceramics of Koie Ryoji
6.
Age of Light 00:39
What did this Venus, with hair like vapor, what did she think would happen in the mirror? A terrible combustion: cloudless body hewn in a plaster mask, cold moon buoyed out to a people-less, thoughtless ocean absent of will. She is no more vain to look at herself than to keep herself alive by eating, and now there aren't even ashes. From the photography of Man Ray
7.
SCREAM 01:10
In the awful heat that bakes the flesh of the ground into dry red dirt that is et by panting wild dogs, in the awful setting sun the street lights wink on an awful warning. Across, the neighbors' yards are nothing but dust and scurrying animals—squirrels, why squirrels, the squirrels must be sleeping, these are larger, no hair on their feverish bodies, small-dog-size, aquatic paws replaced by hands—HANDS—it can't be right. They are grabbing humanoid, long, squirming tails like monkeys—they are not supposed to be here. This is illegal. They scurry. They swarm. They look over. One forms words with wormy toothless lips, not English, not language, something older, something dead, my own mouth sticks itself in a tight ring, a letter O, a silent howl.
8.
Trees: Good. God: Damn dog. Mad god. Hell: All Montagues. Especially that one. Vindication: Of the rights of whoever wants ‘em. Vindictive: Everyone. Strangers: Your personality is showing, mine is not. Tension headaches: My face hurts from oversmiling. Eat: Or don’t. Eye roll: Delicious. Delicacy. Indecent. Iambic: Inhale slowly, exhale heavy sigh. Paint: Pointillism. Rock stars: Always wear capes. Husband: He’s working, he’ll get here soon. Solve for X: Can’t be helped. Chromosomes: Determine fate. Dress: Flourish of colored perfume. Boots: Still kick, guard your shins. South: Compass rose, night blooming jasmine. Police blotter: Check the airwaves for dead friends. Free fall: You’re a hypnogogic jerk. Talking: Nonsense through sleepy teeth. Mother: I’ll name her Inconsistent. She’ll grow tall as an oak.
9.
When his father's eye opens over him waxing him in cool light over the river, even us faithless are stunned. Whatever happens at last, I hope he can escape the old blood staining his robes, the loneliness no one told him was part of being human.  
10.
Leda 01:21
I My fly's zipper caught pubic hair uprooted it pinched the follicle wings beat like hooves punched my chest beak punctured hymen oh it was glorious rough and tumble and a spatter of blood I was given a great gift. Why do you say it in such a mocking tone? I don't, at least not yet. II A blue eye, a blue, blue eye, blue for want of brown. My Castor dropped his spoon, it clattered like magazine fire (startled me) and now he is a man. I washed Pollux carefully until he outgrew the sink, the tub, the yard, they are growing, growing (terrifying) and eclipse my view of the sky, everything now dark blue and too opaque. They're too big for their forgotten mother, all I have left are these ostrich egg shells. Stupid Leda— women are only mothers, wives, sisters of men. That's all right, Zeus. You'll die too.
11.
Wet boots, size 16 drag the purple corpse without struggle up the hill. "This your boy?" The badge sparkles. Annie, 7, peeks her strawberry cheeks and hair, is shushed back inside. A note: To my father I leave my mangled body, a box full of stars.  
12.
In the gold-green leaves of the New Jersey Sumac there are more than moths and spiders. The vociferous goatsucking whippoorwill lurks on the lichened branches. The bird seems benign with its whisker feathers and widish beak, but what has terrified children for thousands of years is the nightcry shriek, the rambling cooing refrains sounding like a man being beaten to death for stealing.  
13.
So yes we know our teachers are dying, and we are dying, our tribes are dwindling, kids I’m looking at you giving you these little bright bulbs to string around my tomb stone like a barbed wire but only to blink my spirit into the dark world rather than keep things out or in. So as I was thinking this lofty human bullshit the grubworm came jiggling like a jazz vibraphone, heat-seeking missile stop-motion flopping toward my molded boot close in shape and size to the lovable and noble roley-poley bug, but a gross antagonistic daguerreotype to squish, to retch, to swoon, to kill it. I killed it. So when I said words are a swarm of black flies thickening the sick orange of that street light (as in, that one), this is what I meant:
14.
I It's just the cold white of your naked back lumpy with vertebrae when the moon comes in. It lights the yard's tree green from underneath. Show. Explain. II And why can't I sleep, oh yeah, that letter I fear from what feels like ages ago. Dumb shit why didn't I lock the front door? III I did put my hand on that head stone. It glowed eyeless pink when I took my hand away. I was there it was night and it was night. IV Who cares about the war on, the riots, or what year it is, we've all been the shrimp, the cloud, the boat, the cormorant, the bebop xylophone, the estuary, the clown wig. Right?
15.
Landscape 00:58
Today it looks dark, no sun all the trees are sickly from the windows the smell of food like night, but paraphrased. Nothing is missing not a stitch of clothing or a blade of grass is out of place. This is how things are: Inside the fence children play ball on a court choked with weeds, glass, tire tracks. Every day they parade to the big industrial school building. Every day they come back out. Wade through rusted beer bottle caps to get to the one hole in the chain-link a crack in the armor people cross sometimes to wound the anxious city.
16.
Spawn 01:05
everything smelled of mossy wood at the stream behind my house I scooped fistfuls of baked mud the hollows spoke of the markings of animals foxes, bird dogs but we couldn't find any so imagined them chocolate ice cream smeared around your mouth, grotesque harlequin and I pretended I had gotten too much mustard on my clothes to wear them we took them off when it rained I was small but I felt something sticky between my legs when I put my toes in the cool wet leaves my tiny nipples stood erect I cut my foot on a sliver of green glass behind a wall of earth
17.
Why did the baby water moccasin float in on a palm-sized river, flick its tongue to sniff our toast and bacon, through the crack between the foundation and door? Will it poison us? It broke the shell of its tiny egg with one tooth, and now it can't tell the difference between floor and ceiling (when all you see is up, up's direction matters only a little). Down the back stairs the basement flooded again, water the color of red clay up to your waist even after zoos of insects bounced on the current out the open hatch. The water moccasin ate the insects. He enjoyed them very much.
18.
Smile 00:37
Tongue a wide mushed beefsteak, yellow ivorychipped teeth spaced for the black keys, too many orthodontists and their incompetent hygienists smelled my poppyseed breath and tried to cut the skin flaps in my gums like I was the fucking Elephant Man. I am so incredibly proud to have this fuzzy crooked smile that spits in their mouths and makes my lips split even wider, Cheshire moon.
19.
Bloodletting 00:27
Sorry my love, I was mending one of your shirts, the yellow one, and I know the splatter looks like a drop of mascara from a weepy eye— it is only where I pricked my finger and stupidly let blood spill.
20.
Mary’s puffy crow's feet have been crying about the world again, she misled us all. How in the hell did that painter jot her down so fast, before she could get her makeup on like normal? I’ve seen those Hollywood epics with their false street preachers rubbed in bone dust on every damned corner, I’ve seen their ladies with the lovely hair all done up—the quiet, rosacea'd one smiling moronically at God with clean, clear eyes is not Mary. These are Mary’s glum dark bleary eyes like unfortunate sky-cataracts, her filthy horned hands. (Cyprus Icon)
21.
They ran out of my favorite blue ballpoint pens at the bank today. I can't steal them anymore. Where else will I get them? Any excuse to go in: the crisp smell of fresh ink on paper, the biscuits for my dog and lollipops for my nephews, the jingle of the chains attaching the harder-to-come-by red pens. And of course, every time I go through the revolving door I can pretend I have money. But now they're out of my favorite blue ballpoint pens I can't pretend anymore.
22.
Eurydice 01:12
Last night you were in danger of rolling off the edge of the bed, which is very uncommon, usually you're hogging my side. You were in danger of rolling off the edge of the world, into some abyss. No amount of yelling or trying to roll you limp like a big full sack back over brought you from the crater's lip, the crater that was nothing. It was only when I said the word no. softly and held out my hand—do you remember—? that you took it and nuzzled safe back to me. It was as simple as that. Would you have done the same? Are we the same? Are you there?
23.
Some moons look different. Some are more green. Some almost make a sound. I sat on top of a rock and looked over, all I could see was darkness. But I could hear the ground heaving and that is what I wanted, to lie flat on it and let it be under me.  

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released January 14, 2019

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Al Russell North Carolina

Al Russell is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of New Hampshire. She is a poetry editor at Outlook Springs literary journal. She is also an ordained minister of the Church of the Subgenius. She lives in North Carolina.

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