“hush” by Robin Gow

ask to be fed

& wait outside

in the alley while

all the trees turn

to black cherry soda.

 

from this view

you might almost miss the sun

as it straddles

the foreheads of buildings

on your street.

 

you feel the soda

& you’re hungry for it,

you want to drink

the pits, the stems & all.

 

something is dripping

& a siren reminds you

that people get hurt even

on thursdays– in fact

people die

on thursdays.

 

the sirens collect bottle caps

& toss them at

a brick wall.

they’re probably working

to distract you

but you catch on.

 

somewhere the cap

is being twist off

the bottle & the bottle

is saying

hush, hush.

 

the tree you loved

growing up– the one

who’s skin freckled

with caterpillars,

that tree,

 

plucks its roots

out of the soft rain-fresh earth,

leg by leg.

 

you follow it to see where

it’s going

& you find the tree

gathering friends & lovers,

coaxing their legs too

free of the earth.

 

this isn’t the first

time you’ve watched the trees

run bare but it seems

somehow different

 

& you trail behind till

you arrive at

the bottling factory

where conveyor belts

of clear glass bottles

serve as shells for

all kinds of plants

to run away to–

 

a potted fern

becomes a bottle

of orange soda–

an orchid into grape soda.

 

the trees will be cherry soda

you know this because

this is the soda your father

always drank with a fist full

of ice in a

sweating glass.

 

you think again to the alley

leading to your house

& imagine cherry soda

instead of old rain water

trickling down the walls–

pressing your tongue

to stone

 

eating stone,

just grazing the surface

with your teeth.

 

ask to be fed

& there is a bottle cap

being opened telling

your throat to hush

hush.

 

you wonder what your

father tasted in that black cherry soda–

if his bottles

were also made of

his favorite trees to sit under–

if he swished the carbonated

nectar in his mouth

or if he gulped.

 

carrying a case of the soda bottles

they clink & at first

you think the clinking

is your own bones.

 

you drink all the sodas

before going inside

because you know you can’t share

& then you plant the bottles

in the cobblestone ground,

 

telling the stones to

be kind to whatever trees

might want to grow

in between these two buildings.

 

∞

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Robin Gow’s poetry has recently been published in POETRY, the Gateway Review, and tilde. He is a graduate student at Adelphi University pursing an MFA in Creative Writing. He is the Editor at Large for Village of Crickets, Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages and interns for Porkbelly Press. He is an out and proud bisexual transgender man passionate about LGBT issues. He loves poetry that lilts in and out of reality and his queerness is also the central axis of his work.

Follow him on Twitter @gow_robin_frank!