ISSUE 7

Marina Hope Wilson

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Cafe Mogador

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for Gabrielle

Winter light and tight tables,
she unbuttons and unfurls
in the chair. Leans over
the votive candle, says,
How’s my lipstick? I was
going for French Prostitute

Chic. That red smudge,
another darklit dinner. The
world a blurred background
to our every conversation.                          
What’s better? The basic
button down boyfriend,
a dog and a baby, a cabin in
the Catskills? The coke-snorting
waiter who screws the
yoga teacher on the side?

Better the perfect black boot.
Better the prize trip to Miami,
cheap sunburns, soft white robes,
room service french fries
and tiny bottles of Tabasco.

Better the scramble through her
living room window to the makeshift
roof deck, drinking bees knees              
from pink hobnail tumblers.

Better morning drives
up Kent Avenue because
it's a good way to talk —
passing the abandoned            

factories, the East River
just out of view. I swim               

through a broken lake

to find the brightest word

for her. But I can't

say it out loud. 

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Joshua Tree

for Gabrielle

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The green window is brief.

You’re lucky to find a yellow brittlebush

bouquet blooming on the side of the road.

Otherwise everything burns brown or

deep orange until a dense blue appears

where the mountain range softens in shade.

I never asked her about the desert.

If she had been here. Seen the odd

and miraculous, if slightly ridiculous trees.

Felt the prehistoric ocean

funnel the wind into her ears.

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