David M. Morini
Cornflower
i. lights out1
car beams2 stargazing3 got somewhere to gocrouch drunk by a japanese coffee table4 flowered with litter
sadness music5 from four years ago and forward
body unforward6 weighted down orange juice vodka7
flipping over out medicine mirror8
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1It was summer, 1997. Highspeed Taurus through cornfields growing parallel to route 9. Nightfall is when
you’re on my mind the most. The smell of night flora, the cocktails on the edge of the hour, our underaged
manipulations.
2Christ, they come so fast around a 45 degree turn. This road crosses the bike path and ends to the right of
the Adult Super Store.
3Literally and Siouxsie and the Banshees The Rapture (1995).
492 Puffton Village. The camel-colored carpet stained. The trash heap. The smell of an extinguished pilot
light.
5Summer meant Brit-Pop; the swagger and drunk, the smoking endless packs of cigarettes. A few other
drops of tracks no one listens to anymore.
6There were too many sluts to bestow nicknames on us all. Where my body got passed; passed to, passed
over.
7When we ran out of Jagermeister and couldn’t acquire enough Manhattan Iced Teas. Oh… Manhattan.
8Throwing Muses Limbo “Ruthie’s Knocking” (1996).
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cornflower9 scented night time driving10
high school mini-van11; lights out12
gallop full speed13 backward home and a circle14
more over a sphere15 this false cupid16 lounges shellfish17
something alive in the colorful lack of color18
and the scent19 that tumbles from the rows20; drive through21
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9Not even sure if corn has a flower. I imagine that it’s blue, small with five petals. Like sky violets.
10Throwing Muses Limbo “Night Driving” (1996)
11Here I stand corrected. The room awarded in a burgundy Caravan. Some of us were high school either
registered or reliving.
12It was summer, 1997. Highspeed Dodge through cornfields growing parallel to route 9. Nightfall is when
you’re on my mind the most. The smell of night flora, the cocktails on the edge of the hour, our underaged
manipulations.
13The horses were spirits in the engine. Tires gallop, the road is uneven and patched.
14Being: Amherst to Great Neck to Purchase to Amherst.
15A sphere has three dimensions, a tangible precinct. I imagined your sphere; purple-blue, floating back to
me imprisoned in Crystal Tokyo.
16Anyone I decided to make-out with. Yes, mine, now.
17The Birth of Venus; allergic to; the distaste for; Labor Day cookouts; muscles, clams, and oysters.
18“And returns to him from the blind the scent of color like parachutes open, ready to be ingested.”
19Thick notions and bases of New England. The antithesis of autumn.
20Rows of corn create lines. Diagonal or vertical depending on perspective and speed.
21And we’re hungry for fast food. But that would squander our drunkenness.
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let’s see22
fly away… staying on the island23
that’s Solomon24
encircling never-touch25 the nucleus
mailed26 off Capricorn27 for his lyric28
lights out29
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22Because we drive I’m able to transgress. Speed accentuates vision into alternate space.
23As in Long Island.
24“Solomon crawls on the belly of God. Solomon falls on his face in love with me.” Belly, Stay (1993)
25We orbit each other like binary stars. Equal in mass.
26The era of pre-email, before the term “snail-mail”. When letters were stamped, delivered from blue box to
metal box as if by predatory birds.
27Born: January 11, 1978.
28Though never a musician he radiated song and lyric. His reverb, the rings in the dike from his mind to
mine, traveled for undisturbed miles.
29I wouldn’t ask for finality. With “off” there is “on” by light switch or sunrise.
