by Luisa Muradyan
This Was His Garden
Crouching on the heels of my feet
I tug at the whiskers of a radish
and pull a clown nose
out of the soil.
Placing the radish on my face
I turn my lips downward
pretending I am not unlike
the sad clown at the circus
driving a miniature car
stopping dramatically in
the center stage
opening the passenger door
and waiting for something,
anything, a dog bouncing on a pogo
stick, an elephant with garlands
of marigolds, a ballerina with
cotton candy bursting
from her hips, a tiny girl balancing
a baton on her head, exactly
one million butterflies with synchronized
movements or at least one million
human beings dressed like butterflies flapping
their wings in unison. A trumpet, an oboe,
a hamburger, something between pieces of bread.
But as I stand in front of the open car door
nothing comes out, the tiny car is a void
and the audience is furious.
My grandfather was buried there,
and the audience is furious.
In the Moonlight
The heads they follow me.
Not political or villainous
metaphors for power. No, these are
thinking human heads that weigh heavy
in my backpack and drop to the ground
like potatoes. You see they tend to show up.
Yesterday I opened my locker
and a red head dropped to the ground,
I was embarrassed to say the least.
Perhaps it is all a figment of my imagination
and If I close my eyes they will disappear.
Except, I still see you behind the shutters
legs crossed on the love seat stroking
a beautiful head of hazelnut hair. I beg you
to stop, but you are a poem
smoking your long cigarette, taunting me
with my grandmother’s necklace or the basement
full of sparrows you unleash at inopportune moments.
I remember when you fed them rice and they exploded
like fire sparklers in mid air, the lovers in mid stanza
covered in bird shit and feathers.
I remember how beautiful the sea was that night
we got into the glass bottom boat. How the angel
fish swam in circles in the moonlight, how horrified
I was when we cast back our net and found a crab
pinching the nose of a head not unlike yours.
Luisa Muradyan is originally from the Ukraine and currently an MFA candidate at Texas State University. She is also an editor for the Front Porch Journal and her work has appeared in Neon and anderbo.com
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