///
there’s a toilet in the park bathroom
that won’t stop flushing. before the
water has a chance to resolve itself
into a mirror, centripetal force
interrupts. humankind’s eternal
search for vanity is undermined
only by life’s yet stronger imposition
of humility. sewer pipes ferry piss
and shit to their damnation,
all the meanwhile saving the bearer
the dignity of confronting their humanity
in visceral terms. yesterday, i stared
in awe and peed in the neighboring
toilet while listening to the flood,
wondering who was braver than i
or perhaps more cowardly. what practice
lends one the hubris to crouch
so close to hell without concern
of peripheral consumption? the purgatorial
state of ambivalence seems a worse fate.
i couldn’t bear
forgetting myself so quickly.
///
the glass in my windows is old. i can
tell because the trees outside move
without will or breeze. the clouds
flex and crack in their atmospheric flight
through time, a child’s dinosaur.
a city’s downfall. a history teacher
once told me glass was a slow-moving
liquid: the molecules are on a slow
march toward the center
of the earth to sanctify their molten
destiny: a rotund fate predetermined
by the specific pitch and decibel
of entire continents shifting
to get comfortable before settling
into rest. what was magic,
from any other angle, remains
gravity. much like any other, my warped
view can be blamed on human
design. when wet, wood expands. like a
marionette, the glass is compelled to dance.
Makenna Dykstra (she/her) is currently a graduate student pursuing an MA in English Literature at Tulane University in New Orleans. She can often be found on Twitter @makdykstra or in the local parks, writing, reading, or admiring the oak trees.