ANTICHRIS_

By Ala Fink

A redheaded child wakes
from a lingering dream,
still clutching the string
attached to an orange balloon.

Wearing a white sweater and a gruff voice,
he confesses—
“It’ll never happen again,
baby, I promise.”
She clenches her eyes,
presses a kiss on his violet lips.

Spared by the daily stampede, the paper
proclaims, “Six Bodies in Four Hours,
Juárez, Mexico.” The entering
and exiting slam into one another,
“Local Testifies This is Normal,”
like morning blindness.

At Port Authority a fluctuating crowd
gathers around a violinist,
Brahms’ Lullaby ripples
and rises, a fleeting relief
for hurried faces.

By Ala Fink

In a second
a humming bird flaps its wings fifty times,
raindrops scatter about the slender body;
red green wings fling
fireworks
bursting in the purple-blue sky,
only to dissipate
in my eye.

by Ala Fink

a pair of bare, white legs
protrudes from a phone booth
on a strangely deserted fifth avenue.
black leather heels complete the stretched limbs.
long.
lean.
past the legs, a flock
of swaying skirts
on giggling girls
floats above the littered pavement,
past the crying woman,
huddled between a GAP Kids
and a GAP Body.
the traffic lights turn green;
fifth avenue moves again, and all crying
is muffled by the friction of rubber on asphalt.
echoes of giggles resonate.
the legs, dipped in green gleam, indifferent,
make the void inside the booth
more acute.
Bukowski would have liked those legs.

(excerpt from Recollection…a chapbook)
by Ala Fink

Black rain beats at the door,
I’m darning your socks
again; three holes by the toes
and one at the heel.Your brown
leather shoes lay by my feet;
their soles reduced
to translucent sheets.
The rain began with breakfast,
our eyes bore holes at the crack
in the floor. The wind lashes
at a window, and I’m waiting
for a shower of glass
to cover me.

(excerpt from Recollection…a chapbook)
by Ala Fink

Ravenous roots corrode
the core of the earth,
nourishing off the flesh
of the soil.
Unseen tentacles crawl
into magma rivers
and invade sunken
bodies of glaciers.
Naïve, the globe
spins lazily on its axis,
conversing with gravity,
charting a new course
beyond the Milky Way.
Roots gnaw
on gladiolas
and tulip bulbs,
they flourish
and cover the world
with cancer.