Unripe

5/25/08

by katie boyden

a girl wraps herself in sweet somethings ,

cool, foggy air surrounds her in the shapeless space

and claws at the darkness--- her face

reminds me of the time

you flashed me your Jack of Spades

smug

like i wanted it

she sighs and puts the bottle to her lips

carbonation cracks her throat

as she watches the bubbles race towards the surface,

---pulling deeply through her teeth.

you wink and spray whipped cream into your mouth

dizzy you got some nitrous too

didn't you?

you say my hands intoxicate you

I raise them to my face and breathe in the earthy smell of tomato plants

You let me rub the sweet, green scent into your skin.

a girl blows smoke O's

watches the red-orange tip glow brighter as she inhales

a flush of freezing air

makes ripe, fragile buds perk up underneath her shirt.

your mouth is crushed velvet

pours wine in my sheets

that just we can see.

and the sound of my heart pounding the bed frame

is the only thing that can shatter the silence.

Your voice is thick in my throat

and plays loudest in my memory.

a girl jumps, startled
from the sudden sound of a woman's voice from inside

but it's only a loud commercial on TV.

She walks to the ledge and takes a final long drag exhaling into the frozen night

a fresh raindrop mingles with the salty stream on her cheek

she turns to go in

hesitates,

leans over the tomatoes, and inhales.

Entropy

Heat does funny things to people.

In the summer months of Los Angeles, this effect is especially apparent. The energy from a sweltering July sun charges the air in such a way that disrupts the normal electrical firings in our brains, making everyone just a little more edgy, a little less controlled than usual. In much the same way it turns water to steam, our thoughts become less orderly and more chaotic as the days get longer and hotter. We do things that we never thought in a million years we would do.

But the really interesting thing about heat is that it is never the same. The light and energy that the sun gives our planet today is different from the heat we’ve felt yesterday and what we will feel tomorrow. And it isn’t just in the sunlight, it’s in everything, our hands, our hot dogs, our coffee, our breath. It is a one-way system, and as fast as the sun can produce it, it will escape into the atmosphere, the universe, never to be recaptured. This is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

The energy put into a system can never be fully recycled; some part of it will always be lost.

This seems inefficient. It’s not. In fact, I believe it’s terribly important. It is the stuff of free will. The sunlight today is unique, infused with possibility. That energy is a gift, the present in every sense of the word. How we use our heat, today, is what shapes our destinies, and is what creates the explosion that happens when two charged particles collide. And we have to act fast because, when it comes down to it, we will all eventually cool off.

redwood grove

i crush berries sweet black

my tongue pressed palate

pours lip-staining rivlets

swirls by goosebump calves the coldfresh water,

My father wades in the waning day.

careful a current! laughing

i drop my too-big gloves

a rock. a stumble. a startle? a bird! a thorn. a thrash.

a guess. a grab. a bee!

throw bubbles i said

make claps i laughed.

a shout. a shove. a splash. a grinning gasp.

Vines bright green wrap tendrils of memory.

i see sour, see? green. see?

good enough for me.

plucking the ripe ovaries without permission

wet jeans wrap skin.

little fingers sneaking, don’t watch daddy!

he catches me snacking. but look over there

caught in those brambles a baby dove his leg is stuck!

a trill. a gray. a chance?

a clutch. a wing.

a ride. a splint. a hope. a life.

he’ll be ok now, won’t he?

Let’s go home

mud-cracked fingernails and angry red scratches

wash up and wipe the dirt off my chin,

smash the berries into a paste turns my fingers purple

Pour the sugar little sous chef

kneading ambition, flour clouds powder our smiles,

a feather. a father.

a pie.