travel

COME SIT BY THE FIRESIDE


Rosehill Cemetery gates across the street

barroom, front patio, back patio, dining room

one bar back. Career alcoholics,

a sea of pony and half barrel kegs

lining the floors of the basement

change the sanke, wrench the nozzle, Co2 tanks

hissing beer pouring from brass taps

pint glasses sweating in the heat

bouncing, Latin Kings smashing bar stools

on my back, people stomping on heads

on the sidewalk

shot glasses thrown in my face, pint glasses

coworkers fucking each other in the bathroom

biker lady wielding a Billy club at my head

ex-girlfriend crashes my van out front

CPD extorts me for four hundred dollars

run to the 24-hour Jewel to grab cash from the ATM

homicide detectives next to drug dealers next to

Pakistani cab drivers and service industry regulars

and sex workers, cockroaches crawling out of our food

they are in my clothes, fall of the ceiling into my hair

I ladle one out of the ranch dressing, one crawls out of my salad

Juan fucks up and is attacked by a woman clicking a taser

Tommy scales the wall to break in and cooks himself breakfast

and is knocked out with a punch to the face

then scales the wall and does it again

my Tai boss takes me from my shift in the middle of the night

to bring me to her Lady Boy Show in a closed off

Tai restaurant in an empty neighborhood

people are slipping twenties into thongs while the

Lady boys dance seductively and sing karaoke

7 AM, we are shotgunning Strongbow in the parking lot while

cyclists go by to start their day

boxes fall over int the beer cooler, our glug wine container

is filled with trash, spit, and germs, and we microwave

it and serve it to customers

a terrible man asks me to phone him a cab to Rogers Park

I send him to 95th and Halsted, his wife is in the hospital dying

and he is here hitting on 21-year-old girls. Leaving,

a coyote follows me down the street by the train tracks

the street is covered in mist, unseen birds singing.

I walk a mile home

in silence.

                    To you who stole my bicycle

We used to tackle Knox Mountain together, me 
and Knoxy, the trails criss-crossed like scattered 
spokes, Lake Okanagan flaring 
around each hairpin, each blind turn, blinking 
between the scrub-trees, bright 
as titanium rims. My Knoxy 

was a humble Trek Marlin, but fine 
fine fine to me. I stabled her in my living 
room and never went to bed without patting 
her handlebars goodnight. She carried me 
sweating and elated to the library, swimming 

pool, the scrabble-trails of Rose Valley 
before they burned. Knoxy was marigold
red, the color of the Okanagan 
on fire. She bounded sure-wheeled
over boulders, bracken, down inclines 
steep as stairs. But here’s the thing – it wasn’t 
the fires that got her. It was you.

An August Sunday, I glided 
downhill to the pool, locked 
my Knoxy safe to the bike racks, snug 
among the Schwinns and Huffys, all 
wagging their fenders, catching 
each other up on the gossip.

I remember the smoke that day, thick
as rubber mesh. Across the lake, 
Rose Valley candled in the wind. 
The crown of Knox Mountain dissolved. 
At the end of my swim, only a Knoxy-shaped 
gap remained at the racks.

My helmet quivered on the asphalt
like a severed skull, or an eggshell kicked 
from the nest. The other bikes cowered
as I gathered the remains, the lock
clean-severed like a vertebrae
when you land a jump dead-wrong.

What can I say to you – you 
who stole my Knoxy? I want 
to tell you to clean her chain, lick 
each link until your tongue 
gums black. I want her gears 
to crush your knuckles if you ever

 – I mean ever – 

frame her as a getaway 
accomplice on your next
dumb heist. You better
ride her heroically or bring 
her home, you fuck.

 

 
                    Why I covet the color magenta

Because fireweed is a voyeur, 
flocking to the site of a blaze. 
Magellan’s armada was the first to claw
its way around the globe – magnificent!

Magenta is an extra-spectral color, 
not derived from visible light. 
Extra-special, extra-terrestrial. 
Magellanic Clouds turned out to be galaxies, 

gyroscoping out of grasp. 
Magellan’s crew died of scurvy 
and hallucinations – spectres, spooks, 
tug-of-war with tortoises. 

Ladies of the night wield magenta parasols, 
garters, all those trappings of want. 
I covet the color magenta 
because of arterial maps, oddly faded. 

Because of charts and magnetism, 
chalk drawings, compasses, 
the all-encompassing gravity of space. 
Placentas, placebos, and magic.

Magenta is the patron saint of escapism,
the magenta sky orchid a symbol of wealth 
and admiration. Magenta neckties 
stand out in a crowd. Magenta lipstick 

is only for special occasions – a trip
to the planetarium or a certain rendezvous.
I crave Crayola markers, cartoon dragons, 
flying saucers. All the conspiracies of childhood.

Magellan himself was speared to death 
half-way home. The Jovian gas giant Gliese 504b
shows up as magenta in the radio images.
I want to bounce it like a rubber ball. 

If I could choose a color for my breath, 
I’d choose magenta. 
If the Magellanic Clouds could rain, 
we’d all go up in star-fire – marvelous!

The Beatnik Cowboy

Adam J. Galanski-De León

Danielle Hubbard