Feather Ball Badminton & An Apple a Day
By Sivan Lavie
(4)
feather ball badminton with wings and spirals, being tossed to and fro between two peoplewho are unsure. Like a hot potato being flung over the net again and again
And the one who will drop it is surely the first one to crack and burst into tears.
Two people who are unsure are two beating hearts so close that they pulsate together indifferent colors underneath colorful clothing and neither willing to be the first to say,
Hey-
Hey-
Hey-
I am hurt
Or
Hey
Hey
Hey
I fucked up
Instead they will say things like
Are you sure?
What do you think?
Isn’t it a sunny day?
And the pain in their chest is a growing expanding volcano, hidden under their donald
duck tshirt and after they part ways they go home and lay into the bed-lap of their deceasedgrandmother, and
Fall into deep waters of tears
And the grandma puts her large palm on their back
Right between their two shoulder blades and says
It’s ok
You deserve this love
You called it to you
I love you
And their body fills with colors gems and a dance and a song and a melody and a harmony
Like a harmonica
Whistling through their ears and nose and mouth,
And maybe next time they won’t have to pass the hot potato
Maybe next time they will just hold it and say
I do
I do
I do.
(5)
An apple a day and the doctor won’t bite you.
Red apple,
Blue apple,
Green.
Apple semen seeds and a friendly hairy man arm
Extended across my bed,
Eating Cheetos.
This protects me.
“Are you eating Cheetos?”
I ask from within sleep
“is that alright?”
He is funny and the crowd machine laughs.
There’s a moon
Right in the middle of the star
Of your neck
It beams above me
In the same beat as the Cheeto crunch
The same beat as my burning beating heart
Pulsating in purples and oranges.
Hold my hand,
After you wipe off the Cheeto dust
Say nice words to me
Or at least send emojis
That can travel into my heart
Small tiny ants
Static
Embers
Glittering between us
Why does the world always run ahead?
Everyone’s wearing backpacks with windswept hair
Running to the airport
Nymphomaniac ants
On electric scooters
You and me, we are the only ones sitting on solid and stable, slow earth
“he looks like he doesn’t exist in a city,”
It’s true,
You don’t.
We are in the field, beside the truck with a (very very slow) olive tree between us
And a slow purple tunnel
Like a festive, happy turtle
Sailing slowly, slowly between us,
In satisfied slow motion
Between my heart and yours,
Creating soothing love.
Sivan Lavie is a visual artist and poet based in New York City. She believes we are here to heal and feel the big colorful moving weirdness of the universe and have fun while doing it. She’s published chapbooks with Earthbound Press and Inkfish Studio, released a devotional music album with Full Body Massage Records and published her poems and short stories in Hobart, SPECTRA, KEITH LLC, Minto Press, Happy Apples Press. She wants to lick your face, probably.
