Mulberry Street in Winter
The sliding door did not capture
Our mushroom cloud of insignificant
Personal explosions.
Instead it drove us round and forward
Bringing bodies past edges
Of glass that flowed through air
And cut the metal cylinder
With razor blade efficiency.
I pushed, you pushed, we pushed
And out we were into the street,
A crown of lights assembled
Into tiaras rising from building to building,
Held us in awe, the bright bulbs
Sprouting in mid-air and
Making reflections that stained the walls
Which faced out with handsome brick
Into the narrow avenue.
Ben Nardolilli’s work has appeared in the Houston Literary Review, Perigee Magazine, Canopic Jar, One Ghana One Voice, Baker’s Dozen, Thieves Jargon, Quail Bell Magazine, Elimae, Poems Niederngasse, Gold Dust, Scythe, Anemone Sidecar, The Delmarva Review, Contemporary American Voices, SoMa Literary Review, Gloom Cupboard, Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue, Black Words on White Paper, Cantaraville, and Mad Swirl. In addition, he was the poetry editor for West 10th Magazine at NYU and maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.
work to a calm 