everything I write, I write it for you. pineapples, toreadors, wood grain–this is for you. siestas in a hammock of love–for you. parachutes dripping through the sky, like rain. powerful men in cadillacs, like rain. hood ornaments. this is for you. the air has gotten cleaner despite my constant puffing and every tree was once in service, against its will, to those of my kind. this is for you. makeup drawn on a face, morphine on a gray, drawn face, bringing it back to life, to livelihood, the likelihood of violence, so much of it avoidable, on an even playing field. kicking the ball. hard. physics falling like a balloon. the largest of large men launching products lines that someone buys, someone installs. chrome faucet–this is for you. gavel–for you. the iron bell and bright lights and loud speaker and twang. I’ve had cowboy boots that were as much for you as my words, the heels wore down from my travels. this country? yours. if you love something, write it down. if it flies from the page, I wrote it for you.
Naomi Buck Palagi has work published in journals such as Spoon River Review, Otoliths, Moria, Eleven Eleven, Blue Fifth Review and Requited. Additionally, she has two chapbooks, Silver Roof Tantrum (dancing girl press, 2010), and Darkness in the Tent (Dusie Kollectiv 5, 2011).