by Leon Fedolfi

TRIPTYCH IN LOS ANGELES

 

OBESITY IS ENCODED IN OUR GENES

 

All of my online dates have followed this pattern: I am confessor and my date - the reluctant confessed upon. That is a form of breaking trust, a transaction of aesthetic food. Blood bread.

 

Whenever I read about the other’s transgression - most often, but not exclusively, I can see myself doing the same thing. Why? It was just read to me, by me. 

 

When I was 14, at the carnival, my imagination could only hold the thought of thousands of human beings. The soundtrack of slow dancing to Fleetwood Mac is a lasting memory. If that was the lasting mark of our species, it would be gentle. Yet, that was secondary to the prizes I could win by throwing accurately, beautifully. Hitting and winning.

 

Am I to guess the right things to make you love me? 

 

GIVE ME A SHOVEL AND I WILL MAKE MELODIES

 

“There is a small town where football is like the leaves changing. Where the lives of young men are rising or falling conspicuously, and the voices of young women are uplifting. In those towns there are men of same and difference. 

 

The colored leaves blanket the ground interlaced with the music of traffic keys. It’s Tuesday and I am thinking of the rivers along which those human towns were made. If there was a drive-in, I could order popcorn, hold your hand and pretend I live there. 

 

You are a combustion engine - your pistons move so fast. My awkward mechanics cannot fix what is not wrong. When we are young, the movies only envy what we are feeling. I take your hand, and for some small days we are translating living.

 

I will never forget a face. I will let go of your dress and make up - your armor, and the way you used to make me feel in the sunlight of living back then, on the tip of memory - the towns wrapped by rivers and small iron waterfalls.”

 

COFFEE

 

A Bison and my dog look into the eyes of intent. Wolves found religion to be dogs. Bison disappeared and came back Bison. All the other animals exist, like the words that I know you say, but I cannot remember.

  

Neither of us are dull, at fault. I love me dearly. And you?

You are a combination engine - made from sweat and gender alchemy.

I and I, and you.