You can keep Manhattan
And all its yellow flashing lights,
The drunken piggybacks, those freezing nights.
Where our laughter poured out on the side of the street.
Where taxis rushed past, and the steam kissed our feet.
A place where staircases swirled with time,
And like Escher, the rules didn’t align.

Take Central Park where you zipped up my leather;
Your fingers trembling, but not from the weather.
The kisses and the closeness that came right after,
But now those thoughts - they ache, not laughter.


Staring on the subway, we ignored our fate.
You can keep 38th and 6th Avenue’s weight.
Resting our heads on one another as the skyline flew.
Now I need some clouds that will soften my view.
I’ll give way now to the valley sky,

Where mountains lean close and the hills roll by.
Because the memory of Manhattan beats loud in my chest.
And I…
I just really need to rest.
There are oak trees here, oh they are wide and they are true.

And though I’m sometimes blue without you.
You can keep the memory of Manhattan,
Will you do that for me?
Keep it in your pocket, the white shirt with the bee.
So that I don’t hold onto the glimmer of the past.
You can keep Manhattan.
I’ll take the green lights, the green hills,
The rising sun and the sweet stillness that lasts

Flickering candle,
Nearly depleted by the rapidity of thoughts,
Unable to remain peacefully still, 
Half cloaked in shadow, half exposed,
Projecting your glow against the rigid walls of night.

I, too, feel the weight of lament -
Lingering between warmth and scent. 
Tracing the contours of a silhouette. 
Suspended between the delicate space of awareness and carelessness.
A spirited fervor forced to quietly surrender.

The light has long since faded.
When you clawed to stay lit
against the thread of your wick.

Now all you need is a soft exhale,
A whisper blown ℎ𝑢𝑠ℎℎℎ.
Your flame will someday be reignited.
But for now, sleep, dear candle. 
The day is done.

Like olive oil and vinegar, we swirled.  
Close but now remaining uncombined.

When my eyes shut,
yours opened.

The sun set, and you thought of me.
The sun rose, and I thought of you.
But neither of us dared to shake the bottles again once more.

We once moved in fluid motion.
We were near,
then changed course.

𝐴𝑛 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑑
𝐼𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑

A memory of a sweet tarantella dance duo

Stepping clockwise
Then counterclockwise.

Looping, skipping,
dripping, flipping,
tossing, turning.

Eventually spinning with a joy
bordered on pain.

I do recall an emulsifier.
(A time we stirred)
The moment the vibrations
𝑆𝑇𝑂𝑃𝑃𝐸𝐷

In perfect unison…

In that moment a sudden hold.

For.
one.
trembling.
second.

The precious oil
was genuine.

The steps slowly continued.
And our eyes locked on one another.

There was a chance to bridge.
A chance to drift with the stirs.  
To find beauty not in stillness,
but in the motion itself.
In the quiet chemistry
Of adding additions;
Molecules bearing both
hydrophilic and hydrophobic ends.

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑝.

We took our seats.
At different checker patterned tables.

I take one more bite of bread.
A final taste
before dabbing my lips.

All that can be done now is to add salt
…to cut the acid…

And to realize that some molecules
are only meant to float in suspension.
Never meant to truly bond.

-AK

I journeyed far above the sky

Where I met a man on the moon.

He gave me star that guided me through dark space.

I found my trajectory.

Until alas, my palms began to radiate and inflame.

From tender warmth to tender pain

I looked down at the red heat, opened my grasp and let the star float away.

The dust glittered as it drifted on.

And there it was

I began to feel and see the electricity spiral inwards.

The pulverulent clouds of dust will allow new bodies to form.

A wish to be granted in time.

While other eyes graze the very same stardust that will someday collide.

-AKS

A cricket watched from the windowsill,
quiet, still, as the scientist adjusted the telescope again and again.
Looking through the lens,
there was a mess of a star
One that seemed fuzzy and incoherent.
The scientist sighed,
“I can’t tell where it ends!”
And after hours of trying, he stepped away.

He gave up looking.
When the formula was there all along.
The answer was ratio.
The answer was patience.
The answer was focus.
He left before learning that proximity doesn’t mean blur.
It meant resolution is possible with the right
lens.

But he never paused long enough
for the air to still,
for the optics to align,
for the sky to stop shimmering.
He just saw confusion
where clarity was only one calculation away.

When the room fell silent,
the cricket crept onto the scientist’s desk.
Small as a semicolon but bold as truth.
It chirped once
and left behind a slip of paper.
On it, the formula.
A quiet reminder that closeness is not confusion.
It is just a matter of resolution.




Dawes’ Limit.
R = 4.56 / D
Defining the smallest details visible under ideal conditions.
The closest two stars can clearly be seen together In the night sky.

The art therapist asked as if it were a breeze,
“Why don’t you sculpt ‘a mother’, please?”
I nodded, polite, but my eyebrows twitched
A grin tugged my young lips - while the plan suddenly switched.
No apron. No carriage. No dress stitched in blue.
I began to sculpt fins for a glimmering hue.
I rolled out a belly, bold and round,
And I shaped her with pride from the hips on down.
“There”, I said: “A pregnant mermaid with long brown hair…”
Not the mother she asked for, but I didn’t care.
I giggled inside as I built her a tail,
A preposterous idea, a mythical fail.
But when I was done, I stopped and stared.  
Because the mermaid was whimsical, strange, strong, and fiercely rare.
Not merely off base - just hard to define.
The myth I made up - turns out it was mine.

So yes, I defied and maybe I teased
But while sculpting the fins, I began to feel pleased.

She wasn’t wrong, or wild, or something to fix.
She just shimmered with questions and clever tricks.
And maybe, just maybe, that mermaid was just me.
Or the woman I’ll  carve space for… to someday be seen.

I met you in Jerusalem
Where every limestone was worn smooth with time
And every corner hummed and whispered
Of the sacred and sublime

I asked for directions, just passing through
Your smile felt like something new.

We wandered streets as daylight waned,
Past alleys where the past remained.
In a playful tone, you turned to say,
“If I were a gardener, I’d pick you a flower every day.”

I laughed aloud, yet your words stayed near,
Simple, tender, and strangely clear.
They softened the city’s ancient weight,
It nearly bent the hand of fate.

We parted as travelers often do,
With no promises - just a fleeting truth.
But I wonder now, across the seas,
If you think of California’s mountain breeze.

And while not a gardener, now writing code
You still craft worlds in structured rows
Building worlds of logic’s mode

As you leave the shuk hugging flowers red
The future blooms from your pathway’s tread
And here in the quiet corners of my mind
I plant your words in seeds of time

When the famished sun,
Once vivid, lush with hue,
Swallowed shades that it once knew
The cyan skies dissolved to gray
The emerald leaves curled and frayed.

The rainbows who once arched so long
Became a smudge, dark brown mélange.

For days the sun feasted in muted shade,
Till time unraveled, slow, delayed.

Waiting beneath the blankened sky,
Laid buried seeds, their roots entwined,
A quiet earth with loam inside.

The seeds whispered winds for rain to fall,
Dancing tropic movements to heed a call.

They bloomed to jasmine and crowned the night
A nectar sweet, a bright delight
With petals soft and fragrance shared,
A white fluorescence lit the air.

I glance down at a drafted drawing of a woman in the presence of an artist.

“This concept!

This artwork!

shakes paper

It’s absolutely beautiful

It’s sensational

It made me feel things I cannot describe”
“When you finish can I keep it?

I’d like to hold onto it for a very long time”
You smile and nod as if to give it to me another day.

You leave for the evening with your leather jacket dangling around your shoulder.

As I daydream about getting down to brass,

My eyes gaze at the bare wall in front of me.
Where your artwork could be placed just magnificently.

What would hold it up?
I wondered.

I lay down and begin imagining that I am a thumbtack.

His thumbtack

Strange... I’m allowing these images of objectification to enter my mind.
But I have these feelings now

Whereas I didn’t before

Because he did not resist the other purposes I felt I had at the time

Leading up to this moment

He never tried to make me dull

And even now, I do not feel feeble

I feel sharper than ever

Sharp enough to be pushed into a wall

Pushed as hard as he’d like

Just to hold this concept tightly


The next evening we kiss.

Your arm grips the bottoms of my shoulders
You arrange my legs around your back

You lift my weight into to another room

I feel slight bruising beneath my skirt as I’m escorted to the area of your choice.

My thighs feel the pressure of your fingers
Areas neglected of kissing are none
I expel all the air from my lungs and breathe in

As I begin to notice that you have just pressed my back into the bare wall.

My ******* feel crushed beneath your chest.
Your hand covers my mouth to enhance my focus.

You lift me up higher to stabilize.

Between breaths I hear
“You my dear, are the woman in the drawing.. and I will hold you here for a very long time”.


He pushes further and further into me.

Further and further into me.

Further and further.
Further…