Cela's Friends (by highwayscribery)

Cela has friends like cartoon characters
popsicles with hearts like the pulsing red
core of the planet

In Lovedrunk Alley Catalina
she slinks.
Is a pussycat on the ledge
of the window to the
restaurant.

Night lady, she may be sitting out
the nuptial sweepstakes;
all this jockeying for passion has
puffed her weary.

We took each other for a spin
and both of us got sick and dizzy.

Cela’s friends’ smiles are persistent
sharp-edged things.
Sliced crescent moons,
Yin-and-Yang
if somewhat tilted:

Two hundred earthquakes a day
and Nana feels them all.
Jilted
she finds her sleep in the
eastern sway
of the grass out close by
the western ocean.

Salt she used there for
coaxing and calming wounds
that could not resist clutching to her
along the way…

…tasted good to me.

She was pretty and
she was weak.
My flaws were
my own most charming feature.

We became close. It almost
worked out.

Cela still
talks to the both of us.