PICKED
As I watch a man steal fruit on the corner
of Myrtle Ave and Broadway, I want to know
what to do with the memory, days of the week
underwear, the hand cupping the small cones
over my grey t-shirt, feeling
for the raised tip, pink eraser bud not yet
brown. I try to remember what was on TV,
my sister’s back to us, her flipping the channels, the screen
turning black for a second in between Fox News, This Old House,
and Wishbone. Maybe he touched me to reruns
of The Brady Bunch, how I never trusted the father
in a room with them, the girls, especially
Cindy with the blonde pigtails, her blue stare like knowing
her weight, light enough to hold down
with just a forearm. It didn’t matter that it was a Tuesday
in August, he played with the planets on the edge
of my cotton briefs, the rings of Saturn
for Saturday. Mars was for Tuesdays.
Mars was for Wednesday mornings and sometimes
Wednesday afternoons before someone told me
to shower. Mars was for spilled Hawaiian punch
on Jupiter, or laundry days on Mercury.
Mars was for me and the mirror,
when I’d push aside the fabric and see the sprouts
of fuzz, black stubble of strawberry
in the thief’s hand, rubbing the skin with a dry
finger, how hungry to steal just one.
The melons would have told, I’m sure.
Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator, born and raised in Massachusetts. She received her B.A. in English from the University of Massachusetts Lowell where she won the Jack Kerouac Creative Writing Scholarship. She is currently an MFA candidate at New York University and an Associate Poetry Editor for BOAAT. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Day One, Split Lip Magazine, Rust + Moth, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn.