TWO PIECES BY IVY LOUISE

23rd and Pine

There is so much sun here. Sun like a bomb. Sun like a punishment. Sun like a headline about war. I wonder if there is a higher population of people born under Sun signs living here. Is Boulder governed by Leos? I spot the Pisces people stranded out here. They are the ones panting in the shade, strained and cranky, waiting for the sunset in a happy hour dive bar.

I am seated on an old metal lawn chair outside our strange little sublet with the crooked windows and leaking shower, on the corner of 23rd and Spruce. There is a roundabout at this intersection. No one knows how to mitigate it. Every driver is taking an educated guess. Stand here for five minutes and you will see at least one Prius. We were going to make a drinking game out of it—a shot of tequila for every hybrid—but then realized it was a game too easy to win.

A 50-ish white man in khaki shorts and yellow Hawaiian-print shirt walks his dog across the street, braving the chaos of the roundabout. His dog, some kind of lab, takes a massive dump in the neighbor’s yard, in front of God and everyone. The dog didn't have any interest the fire hydrant on the corner, maybe because it’s painted green. Nevermind that dogs are colorblind. Dogs hear red.


Emergency of Purpose

the key of D sounded lonesome so I sold the stereo
now I just walk into rooms singing strange melodies
that infect plants with anticipation

I stole six watches before lunch
and gave them to a dirty, muttering woman on the corner
I bought four bottles of sweet red wine to compliment dinner
and drank them with a can of pasta sauce and black olives

last night ,while you were skinning lies
I dreamed I was serving punch at your high School graduation
in a sweating gymnasium in Detroit
my corsage of blue carnations was wilting under the sodium lights
and I could read my future in the crystal bowl



Ivy Louise lives in Minneapolis, MN. She is a graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. She frequently collaborates with The Low-Fi Society, a collective founded by musician Alexander East.