“DEAR GABRIELLE,” by Andrea Abi-Karam by Poem-a-Day | Poets.org - Audiobook
“DEAR GABRIELLE,” by Andrea Abi-Karam
By Poem-a-Day | Poets.org
Length3m
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Summary
I must have read your letter a hundred times / drafted my response ascending the washed out pink of the Wburg bridge (u know the one) repetitive travel by foot (running) training for the brooklyn half marathon. how momentum forces the body forwards in sub 30 weather / all flushed cheeks & icicle muscle fiber. i saw a beating heart last week fully open chest cavity / i watched the body mechanics (surgeons) excise and replace a Very Important Doorway b/w chambers. it was beating so fast & i was worried for it the threshold b/w parts, left ventricle / aorta; boroughs brooklyn / manhattan, the J late at night from W 4th st the dotted line b/w night & day, the event horizon of a city pulsing at the threshold of air & land, the body on ice (temporarily) waiting for the definitive SHOCK AWAKE, a hand’s gentle massage on your SOURCE POWER i think of the repetition of the oral tradition your pedagogic emphasis & visceral commitment to rearrange space with more possibility / let the axis wobble @ the reverberation of your voice drench my legs are tense from tabulating the miles a train could take me on the QUEER REVELRY urban node/s of RESISTANCE all those grungy house beats shock my heartbeat back into CONTAGIOUS RHYTHM does the movement stop when the beat pauses? it’s been 8 years & i still feel the shock of it buried deep in our soft marrow hip joints locked from loss i find relief in the timbre of your voice widening possibility, opening the cages at Sednaya prison, M’s breath along my skin, green & purple & red & black hearts sent between friends. may the trains bring our hearts close together again soon. XO AAK
