content warning: mentions of death, murder

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Mossy

Amy G. Dala

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I think about the kind of pennies that are left to sink in MacArthur Park--
The copper wishes swallowed up by Mallard ducks.
There’s enough puffs of gloom to encapsulate this snowglobe of a city--
As smoggy hues dance above etched graffiti bus stops,
Mirages from car exhaust pipes can form a puddle of gassy solace, a crumb of comfort.

The other day, three women were found at the bottom of a pond near my hometown,
And I could only think of how much their bodies grew with algae, fuzzy decrepit haggly
decomposition.
How their hair must have fallen off by the clumps, keratin caught in fishnets--

Their heads bobbing until finally sinking like whimpering coins.

The other day, Elisa Lam’s corpse defecated in the water tower of an L.A. hotel,
Her feces scattered down sink faucets next to lemon bar soap.
The plastic pipes carrying pieces of herself for everyone to bathe in.
Her unforgivable pleas in the elevator posted on youtube from security cameras
Could not overcome any filtration to dilute the trace of lingering oriental flesh.

The other day, while walking on Wilshire,
a man on a twig bike followed me down dusty concrete.
As my spine became a crooked asphalt road for him to pedal down,
His eyes began to make a trail on me.
I wanted to decompose.

I ran across the hobbly street, hoping traffic lights would prevent him from catching up--
Gravel trickling down the unfiltered street gutters of my feet.
I walked as fast as I could,
counting the many wishes I’d give to sink between pavement cracks.

His gaze drew tire marks on me,
And I was a deer caught in the headlights about to be roadkill.
His mouth fumbling with asbestos, he insisted on taking me to go bowling--
bowling with him, bowling with his friends, bowling on a weekend, bowling, blowing--

My chest filling up with pond water--
couldn’t speak over all the bubbling murk.

 

A crust of ash climbed up my rotting shoulders.
Rust began to infect the copper pipes of my lungs.
Darts stuck out from my back of my head--
My eyes a pin cushion as the world was only strung together by his fishing line.
A police sketch fermented in my head to regurgitate later.

The boiling water atop my scalp pricked down to the sides of my crunchy body, taking me alive.
My spongy skin pruning from all the water seeping in, a flooding suffocation.
I can still remember the shaking of it all, the end of a tremor, the final shuddering before ceasing underneath moss.
My milky pupils glazed under puffed hooded lids,
A frail and nothingness of demeanor after a whimper.
Maybe water can be quite forgivable after all.