By: Emalisa Rose

Unpurpling the sycamore

There’s two on the higher branch.
Perhaps they’re conversing, in wait
of the blonde one, to toss out some
seeds again.

One tips his wing; ready to sail thru
cumulus. He lands, he takes off,
in repetitive pattern, next to the
nest that once homed him.

Three with their eye on the weather
gods. It’s dismal today; feels like a
storm, first one of Winter, perhaps.

Now that they’re empty, I can see
what was hidden, right here at this
window view, as the leaves still
continue, to unpurple the sycamore.

###

5:29 Jive

Billboards of paradise pimp
Caribbean getaways, far from
this 5:29 ride out of midtown,
lined with the carnage of
Saturday’s snowfall.

Grey steel mosaics, not much
diversity, ‘cept for the sky eyes
diverting my winter funk.

Clouds hang the air in this still
life of February. Stencils of sky
scrapers filling the windows, miles
etch with weeds, riding beside us.

Tuesday night, overtime; even
the sparrows went home.

###

The third year

The first was a fluke; it
hadn’t set in yet. Year two
was somewhat more somber.

Today, it’s year three.

Three years that I’m missing
your voice, like a sparrow
song, sweet and on cue,

each November 19th,

the first call of morning,
when you’d sing “happy
birthday”

Somehow today, it sinks
in the marrow.

This, the third year, that you’re gone.