Anna Kamerer

Above and Beneath

On Sunday a commuter train derailed on the Hudson line killing four and injuring 63

Alluding to these facts I run my hand

Over and over my ponytail

Washed with rose hip scent, I beg you to ask me

About what was so changing, about what changed me, about the change

Thinking of the troll who waits for me on tepid days beyond the escalators at Journal Square wearing a pink windbreaker breathing through her nose while saying any change any change any change any change

And so it was that Storm King was named for a Mountain and the Mountain named for The Storm King and Journal Square named for an empty book.

My hands fall asleep scrolling through my rapists old instagram photos and I wonder how to make my new apartment less like my old while both being on a street called

Locust

The broker laughed and waived his fee.

In the garden the benches were upturned for winter. The last day of the season, I lay my belly across a marble Noguchi thinking,

“What an education, what a thing to learn”

A Hasid buzzed at the door. he brought me a key but would not hand it to me. I asked him to set it on the table. I took my hair down without thinking.

The last Hanukah on Thanksgiving was in 1899, the next predicted collision is 2070, and how does it feel now, how will it feel then?

They cut diamond shaped holes in boarded up windows so spirits may drift in and out; whistling in the breeze, and I keep my window cracked for different reasons.

These are cities on top of cities,

Halfheartedly cooperating, being redirected by caution tape down Locust and Lewis, numbers mark left shell casings, left by the NYPD.

We took the White Plain train instead of the Hudson. We followed the commuters back. I languish beneath the weight of what was and what is and what will be, within these elaborate turnstiles I am still just riding the Path.

 “The weirdest part about infinite column is that you can always see the top. There it is, the end of infinite, the end of the column,” but beyond these words lay mountains, humbled.

Past the scenery we pass brush and factory, I hear a child, nose pressed against the window as we are hurled forward, ask for the lake back, I give up entirely.

My arms above my head filling my shoulders with blood I am weary lord, very weary, you are the same lord, I pray you go slower around the curve.

The Ikea curtains are hung at last.

These are cities on top of cities on top of cities, here I sit surrounded by new furnishings, and watching the lights change colors on the distant empire, I am still wondering what is in the box with a brand new key.

Anna Kamerer is an artist, daughter, sister, and poet. She graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute. She is currently living in between bushwick and the exact middle of the country. For more information please visit www.annakamerer.com.