Between Time | Red Road Trips

Between Time

Priya Bhavikatti

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Red Road Trips

Emily Maiorano

New Years Eve, in a red tinsel harness
After twelve red grapes of luck 
He hung upside down from my hands
With a bloodstone between our palms,
He says people who love me speak through him: 

“Plant flowers that go together. 
You can’t plant a tomato 
next to a strawberry bush 
Just because they are both red.”

He puffed red smoke off of the dashboard,
Red was once the color of halos, he says,
All of the gods’ thousands of hands were warm
But their fingertips were gas blue. 

Eating pancakes without hands, 
He has a wallet of red autumn leaves, 
But some are still in the in-between green.
He says: 
“Anything that falls was supposed to 
at whatever exact time it did.” 

I ask if we can sleep in the kitchen again,
With the eggshells and brown sugar, 
He tells me it is time to go. 
Every time 
I have seen this boy fight with himself
Somehow he has never won.