Kaleidoszkóp

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Kick Me

When they hired me via phone I drove my Honda cross-country
and moved into a cottage off Highway 1 that belonged
to a minimalist anthropologist on sabbatical: television set hidden in
the closet, chairs made of driftwood, no chemicals allowed
for cleaning but vinegar and sea salt. I kept expecting to wake up
somewhere less bizarre and gorgeous, but I was in Santa Cruz:
dreadlocked ten-year-olds riding bicycles while balancing
surfboards under one arm, lemon trees in the yard, the Pacific
rolling along cliffs like a glossy vacation postcard
sent from the place where even God retires.

My cottage was tucked behind a stretch of all-night falafel joints,
and drive-thru espresso huts. The butchers at Esperanza Market
grilled skewered chickens on poles in metal half-barrels
stationed on the sidewalk like mini-tanks, smoke drifting
in my window Saturdays, making me so hungry I’d walk right past
the health food store, its sign engineered by anarchist employees
as a weekly font of motivation: ‘Subvert the Dominant Paradigm”
above “VitaPro Sale-Entire Line 6.99′” I didn’t know anyone
in town then, and on days when I wasn’t teaching, cashiers
at the Food & Herb Bin were my only social interaction. Everything

seemed equally symbolic to me that year, “Sign here”
and “Receipt in the bag?” taking on as much weight
as the kid who stood next to those chickens each week
wearing a cardboard box with armholes cut out.
Someone has painted CAR WASH alongside and orange-
in his front; someone (else?) had sprayed KICK ME on his back
in the same fluorescent paint. He must have known this.
His arrow pointed to four boys hanging out in the parking lot
with crumpled newspaper rags and another with a hose-
weekend fundraiser for some unclear cause.

I often to that market through they didn’t take credit cards,
I was always short of cash, didn’t speak any Spanish
and couldn’t identify a full half of the produce-
weird green fruit like puckered mouths, another I later learned
was a local, über-sweet hybrid called pluot-
two-thirds plum, one-third apricot, varietals named
like lipstick: Red Ray, Dapple Dandy, and Flavor Heart,
along with the more ominous Hand Grenade and Last Chance,
which is what the Kick Me kid yelled late-afternoons
while he motioned cars toward the empty lot

and joyfully conducted and orchestra of traffic, danced in synch
to the walk light’s sound for the blind, and danced harder
when a man in a butcher’s apron took the crisped chickens
back into the market, weaving under the meat’s weight
like he was about to take a drunken swing at one of the pinatas
swaying in the window, candy carcasses filled with the best birthday
party potencial-not the generic donkeys at white kids’ parties.
These were premium Mexican Tv mice, Spongebob Squarepants,
all three Powerpuff Girls suspended in mid-flight, and I wanted one
though I had no one to invite over, blindfold, spin around.

Instead of a pinata, I got a Bingo set that taught cartoon
Spanish: pirata, bola, estrella, and the most benevolent
glass-cupped saint candle on the shelf: Angel de la Guardia
in her white robe, eyes closed, single star over her feathered wings
unfurling in the printed darkness to shield a small girl
clutching a smaller boy. Arms raised like the most ethereal
school crossing-guard in a moment of divine rapture, this angel
channeled the best ecstasy and fearlessness, like the hippie rave girl
who got on the #26 bus barefoot in a patchwork skirt
with glitter-trimmed wings strapped to her back, to bless us all.

Each night before bed I lit that candle, which trailed gray smoke
down the hall of my bungalow, smoothing cars quite, lulling
the whole unfamiliar neighborhood asleep-even the concent cat
on a string in the neighbor’s garden curled up snoozing on the stoop,
protected by the trip-wires of spiderwebs in the hedges-
while I was insomniac, listening to past-midnight radio mariachi
oompahing along, waiting for each new day to break
through the thick morning fog: a gleeful boy labeled KICK ME,
every angel sighting synchronicity, each stranger
I hadn’t met yet an intact pinata dancing on its string.

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Legyen a világ jövője neon, legyen víz

mert a cipőm túl szűk.
Mert már nem élek semmilyen városban.
Mert a férjem arccal felfelé alszik,
az éjszakai lámpa kék fényében.
Mert a tücskök hangosak,
és a hajótörött hold
pont az ajtó előtt van.
Mert úgy hív, mint egy fáklya,
amit végtelenül hordozhatok a bozótban,
a réten át. Útközben

átgázolok a gyomokon. Megszervezem
a legnagyobb menekülést, aztán visszajövök,
hogy betakarhassam a babát, s közben
kitaláljam a nevét mindazoknak a vadvirágoknak,
amelyek minden reggel lila színben virágoznak, és délre
eltűnnek. Az ablakok nyitva vannak.
Én vagyok az egyetlen, aki ébren van,
amikor a szomszéd belehajt
a saját garázsának az ajtajába. A hálószoba
kifordul önmagából, és végigsimítom
a homlokát. Minden rendben lesz.

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May the World to Come Be Neon, Be Water

because my shoes are too tight.
Because I no longer live
in a city of any kind.
Because my husband is asleep,
faceup, un the blue glow of night-light.
Because the crickets are loud
and the shipwreck moon
is right outside the door.
Because it beckons like a torch
I can carry indefinitely through the thicket,
through the meadow. I will furrow

the weeds en route. I will orchestrate
the greatest escape, then come back
so I can tuck a blanket around the baby,
figure out the name of the wildflowers
that bloom purple each morning and vanish
by noon. The windows are open.
I am the only one awake
when the neighbor backs his car
intro his own garage door. The bedroom
turns inside out and I smooth the rubric
of his forehead. We will be all right.

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Erika Meitner Amerikai költő, született 1975-ben. Weboldala: erikameitner.com

Géczi Lajos Kaposváron tanult a Zichy Mihály Iparművészeti Szakgimnáziumban, ahol OKJ Dekoratőr szakon végzett, majd a Pécsi Tudományegyetem Művészeti Karán szerezte a Festőművész mesterdiplomát. A diploma megszerzésével jelentkezett Képzőművész-tanári szakra szintúgy a Művészeti Karon.