September Manifesto

The disposal coughs up the banyan
leaf from last night’s dream.

In the kitchen we sliced our tree
into meaty pieces and used a grill pan.

There will be no more fishing
in the ponds behind the houses.

An apartment building grew
up from the sand and bones

where young couples will learn
to bake and saute their own yards.

This dream presses me, scratches
my throat all day as I pack it tightly, run

10 miles down Kailua Road to the end
where skeleton houses, structures with no breath

lean ever so slightly toward nothing, New Zealand.
The blood smiled through the sea

smiled through me, yet smiled.
I walked through her veneered horizons

back home, where the waves of Evan
and the evening passed on like one.

Jaimie Gusman lives in Honolulu where she is a PhD candidate at the University of Hawaii, teaches creative writing and composition, and runs the M.I.A. Art & Literary Series. Her work has been published nationally and internationally by Trout, Mascara Review, LOCUSPOINT, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Spork Press, Shampoo, Anderbo, DIAGRAM, and others. Her chapbook One Petal Row was published by Tinfish Press in 2011, and her other chapbook, The Anyjar, was published by Highway 101 Press in August 2012.