Prayer at Central Park
reading the wikipedia page for a blonde folk singer
on my phone and the dry grass is poking me.
I want more than this but not by much,
the sky is regular-degular blue and I’m addicted to looking
things up.
I’m missing someone in a good way,
we’re kissing in my dreams again.
I was opening a can of seltzer
when a mosquito landed on my arm
and all it took was a little puff of air from my lips to send it away,
sweet world, is this gentle enough?
I forgot my headphones and my sweatshirt and even my keys
I forgot mercy can come back to bite me, please god
let me be soft & dumb always/ bringing my mouth close
to the fragile thing, assuming the best.
*
little red watering can as: flower-gardener relationship theory
first I was empty
then I was full
then I was empty again
then I was full again
you live and I react to you living.
you’re fond of saying how much you’ve grown
since you met me.
call me little vessel,
I am heavy with your need.
I feed you with an open mouth,
call you big baby.
you love my long neck
and asking me to bring you back from the dead.
I thought I lived in a century
where partnership was about love and not utility
but my friends keep asking,
what am I getting out of this?
anyway
don’t you have somewhere more wild to be?
hasn’t anyone told you about rain?
*
Lilly Perry is a New York-based poet and educator. Her written work is published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Bluff and Vine, Foundlings Press and elsewhere; her spoken word has been performed on stages across the globe. Find her work at Lilperry.com.
