Tiffany Higgins

The poor have the best views, Views sloping down to sea. A green and yellow planet, A blue band, rung with stars. The poor have the best views. You have to walk to get there. Up three flights, narrow paths, Houses rising steeply side to side. No, no space for a car. When the flag lifts, you see the coast: Yellow curve of sand, Framed by reaching branches. Little humpbacked islands, Soon they will drill for oil there, Deep underwater. Once microscopic Diatoms swarmed in salt, danced, died. Fell to the bottom of fathoms, became black Slick hid in shale. They drill down miles... (Police arriving at the edge Of   the mind.) Are you thirsty? Something to drink? Please sit down. Yes, the game is on. We built that room by hand. I lie In bed at night dreaming of a new room, One jutting into sky. The eldest Daughter’s in university. Economics, But she switched to Environment. Out the door, the flag lifts, reveals. (Curve of   Rio.)Ordem e progresso. The poor have the best views, Samba in the sky.

The woman is daft. Invented her own sect. Has upside-down sex. With alternate species. You see her on the street. Corner of   Sansome and Pine: Morning rev up of sf financial types. Instead, there she is, beneath a gigantic hat. Hair wild, in coils, like a rattle- Snake. Smiles like she’s got the shakes. Every cell in her seems to vibrate. Psst! Could you turn that to low? The gray-suited, heads bent to cement, pass. Edges of  her sleeves are threads; Her clothes mismatch. The shoes Are not a pair. She stands as you stare, Or better yet, ignore. You ask Her if she’s fine, and she replies, Fan- Tastic! As if  this were the day She’d finally learned to levitate, And her eyes are the doors To a holographic universe, And she looks right through you, As if  you too had won the lottery of the soul. And you look down at your shiny, perfectly symmetrical shoes, Like, Man, that’s more than I wanted to know. And — Didn’t anyone tell you you need a reason — A  house you own, matching clothes, Translucent skin, sheen of fashion, A pulsing bank account, like our galaxy always expanding — To feel so friggin’ over the moon? Who are you? How do you justify you? What made you you? What context gave you you? And on the curb you kick, swing, scuff your shoes. The woman is daft. Invented her own sect. Probably has no sex, or too much. With any species. She hasn’t yet learned That happiness is contingent — It depends upon The things aforelisted. She’s just riding on the being of   being. Hedonist. On her hand, a rock As if, eons ago, the glacier had swung by and deposited A boulder on her finger. The elemental pinned to her. The woman is daft, I tell you. Adrift. Steer clear. The glint In her — shield your eyes. Downcast. Don’t let it get to you. She will die Alone — while you, you’ll have — Have — Resist. Do not, I say, do not Long for that magic.

Oh my, oh my, I lose myself I study atlases and cirrus paths in search of traces of it, of you of that thing, of that song I keep pressing my ear to the current of air to hear ... I hear it and it disappears It was all I wanted to do in this life to sense that phantom tap on my nerves, to allow myself to be hit by it, attacked, aroused until, as if someone else, I arise I dance my part in paradise ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I read that bees who’ve drunk imidacloprid can’t waggle to indicate to others where the best nectar is located (you and I also long to map for each other the sweetest suck of sap) Workers carry far less food back to the waiting hive. They wander, wobble can’t bring their way home alive The imidacloprid-imbibed can’t bring it back to the colony. Some hives collapse entirely. I desire to say that I, I would do it differently I would be the bee, bloomed with pesticide that still would shake out a wiggle like the finger’s signature on the iPad at checkout: not quite you, but still identity more like a wave than solid you yet enough to signify: There, there, in the far off field spiked acanthus, trumpets of datura in the abandoned lot on the corner of International and High the mystic assignation the golden throat of light: gorge, gorge, take your fill, I would cry before I too failed and my bumbling body lay down to die I’d dance my last dance to rescue the hive yes, I’d carry the amber whirrers out alive                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Or not. Perhaps I too would succumb to the corn syrup, chemical piped into our supply. (I, too, longing to find my way to you, would go off course.) Alas. There is still melody, rhythm, someone is streaking out in air, droning around the phonograph, which is the grooved heart valve of the black vinyl divine who is winding this universe. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Someone is dancing us. Will it be you?                                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dance, dance, as the hive collapses Dance, dance, while the colony disassembles Dance the occasion Dance the gorgeous design                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ inside the honey of our lit up veins                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ between the stripes and streams of these swift rays