SOPHIE CHRISTENBERRY

being alive 2

overwhelming surround sound
sparrows woman selling nutcrackers maria hernandez
park always getting paved seeded trimmed and
lived in it’s may 17th the sorrow and the pigeons and the
humming lumber of a truck on wyckoff
weeklong
heatwave
back in april so the park
all the trees in my neighborhood have the dark
fleshy green of mid-summer but there are
these purple flowers which i’ve never seen before
i try to click backwards in time and open
the pages of a book i had when i was a little girl My First
field guide to flowers a painting of a waterlily on the cover
bright green background wish i could open the
book in my mind
i love the dogs here and the woman selling nutcrackers
asks another woman to watch her bag and
symphony of sparrows which are such flat
poetical birds, but i can’t help it they’re all over
the park with these purple flowers not a lick of cloud
in the sky on may 17th i look up and see a seagull
embossed
huge over a Spirit Airlines plane
it’s hard to want to die with all this beauty
exploding life of the park dogs and the nutcrackers
and expensive coffee the purple flowers
make me imagine i could fall in love at any time
it’s hard to want to die the fuzzy fragrance of green a
low stocky conifer moves so slow in the wind it’s like algae
in water park is like a reef and i’m listening to the
older men sing next to me in Spanish
listen to a comedy radio show the birds are
also
singing
in a funny unison it’s hard to want to die of course
it’s hard to want to live also

Sophie Christenberry is a poet and waitress from Queens, NY.  Her first chapbook “Shift Notes,” was published in 2023 with Bullshit Lit.  She likes seltzer and taking the train to the beach.