Founded in the fall of 1991, Laurel Moon is Brandeis' oldest, national literary publication. Each issue we publish features original work from undergraduate students.
i fall in love & clutch the bottom
of an all-white toilet bowl, throwing
up flowers. it is not polite. the sower
who planted the seeds hands me paper
towels & i want to become as invisible
as the fluids on the gas station wall.
it is not polite. it is bile-wet petals
spat onto tile, a white warning that looks
like love but tastes like the beginning of the end.
i fall in love & see red stop signs
on the highway & brake too fast,
this disease still worse than airbags, but
in three days, i will look up from a gurney
to a red-hot exit sign. my wedding gown:
mass-produced, loose. my ring: a paper
band, DOB. identity: gone with the stems,
leaves & petals tossed beside blood
& needles in a medical waste coffin.
i fall in love & notice that i begin to see pink everywhere
& it is beautiful. acne purifying cheeks
in morning light, motel signs at night
& around his eyes when i tell him
i don’t want to be cured. pink where love
pricks, refuse treatment, slits & transpires
into a second realm of zen gardens
& ambience.
i fall in love & become a florist,
coughing up flowers
until i have something worthy to give
& by then my guts are scraped, gone,
left as roadkill, hanahaki’s. repurposed
like the tsubakis, who are beheaded
when they die. so, we drive for miles down route 9,
sleeping bags & neck aches,
hostess donuts & bouquets.
the blossoming &the decay.