peach or butterbrickle, but never anything heavy
in the year of the flood. “50 years in 50 weeks”
wineries up north washed away, plateaus turned
to sand, minerals leached on the edges of the bay
where tall grass bent for ducks. I signed off
on a wardrobe of black slacks & a white button down,
but changed for clubbing into cargo pants from army surplus
& a Rolling Stones T-shirt. I courted no owl calls or guys
buying the circles under my eyes for dancing to New Wave
bands. Mornings I spilled into work like oil & by afternoon
I sank into the floor mats. Then rinsed off my metal scoop
before dipping again. Rinse dip. Motorcycles clattered
& leather jackets piled in ordering chocolate or vanilla
though we hoped not milkshakes. It took over an hour
to get there for minimum wage, “Honey” followed by
strawberry or rocky road, but I needed something to do
after moving back home. Up the street, diamonds changed
hands at the exchange & Cost Plus imports lined up
in narrow isles. The storms never stopped & I left
my yellow umbrella on Bart one morning so my hair
slumped over my yellow raincoat.
Laurel Benjamin is a San Francisco Bay Area native, where she invented a secret language with her brother. She has work in Lily Poetry Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Sky Island Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down: An Anthology of Women’s Poetry, among others. Affiliated with the Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and Ekphrastic Writers, she holds an MFA from Mills College. She is a reader for Common Ground Review and has featured in the Lily Poetry Review Salon. She was nominated for Best of the Net by Flapper Press in fall 2022.
Image: swensensofsf.com
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Heavy Feather Review 