after Frank O’Hara
And everybody’s showing a rib-cage to the
rib-watchers, head thrown back
throat exposed so we can see the
ridges do you see me we are asking
don’t you see us
how beautiful you are today, this path
and were yester
day and will be tomorrow
Did you hear about the snow
that’s coming and then
it will be gone
Like the roommates next door, abroad right now
All that’s left of them is a footprint on the doormat
and someone
else is already stepping into that, too
Push open the door to see the rib-showing show
(The party-throwers live just upstairs)
that feels like shitty bass and sweaty
bang but mostly just a we we
we of us throbbing and pulsing and stepping
out of the rib-showing show
It’s light and you are stepping out
into the snow, fitting a footprint into
someone else’s with a sound like
head hits pillow
you take off your boots and tomorrow morning
the sweat and salt has bled into the floor like
a chalk outline at a crime scene and it
will be gone, too but not for long
the previous tenant surely
kicked off his sweaty salty boots, too
and let them big beasts bleed where they lay
Isn’t that what the dent in the stairs is for?
To remind you of
everyone who has
stubbed their toe, and tripped, too
carrying groceries and wearing sandals and on the phone
And you are a we in that, in the
everyone of it because they
kept stepping, up and out and tripped
a few times more
Writer | Lila Schlissel ’27| lschlissel27@amherst.edu
Editor | Siani Ammons ’27 | sammons27@amherst.edu