Chartreuse Pulses

Waking up already behind,
but with no where to go let
the streets run.
Wheels chatter, feet patter
it’s the music no one hears.

Chartreuse pulses
popping out of the reeds
budding and building,
overflowing to the rumba
of the wheels on the shopping cart.

When the air is heavy in the summer
and green with electricity,
_____or maybe it’s just grass clippings
_____and dandelion dandruff puffing
_____effortlessly down the street,
it slips between you like hot
grease. Feel it faintly splatter,
but peel away before it burns.

Walk down to the bridge,
it’s only 10 a.m.
and in this green heat
the shirts are already sticking,
the shoes already slipping, and
the dandelions hover
in the jelly thick air.

____

Benjamin Watts is a poet and performer living in Brooklyn, New York. His writing explores queerness, family, identity, and the inescapability of his midwestern roots. He also moonlights as a tarot card reader in his free time. His poetry is forthcoming in samfiftyfour.