By Letting Rooms by Timothy Berrigan | ISSUE SIXTEEN: Realmy Styles

By Letting Rooms

Timothy Berrigan

Out back I imagine a wild room weathers floral slits. A forecast is an association as a day dies. Simplicity is on the backend of understanding I’d imagine. I’d imagine that if a lemon were a season this would be it. This softness hardens into that weather. I wilt among weathers while you remain citrus spritzing. A slit in the sky is merely dancing. Without an explanation is not without an understanding. Simplicity is not ease you tell me. Leaves on the back steps are different stages of an egg. I am bound to my ears as they’re finessing houses into gardens, and gardens into houses¹. I wish the limeblue morning tasted so.

As if I didn’t kill the plants². As if I didn’t imagine the equator’s belt buckle. As if I didn’t imagine my parents in a hospital room with a TV without sound. As if I didn’t think that dress was made at dawn under the subway platform with rain not exactly falling. As if I knew where to begin. As if I didn’t think of the end before the middle of the beginning. As if I didn’t turn my back to the trash sunning on the rocks. As if it’s not just nutrition facts. As if I didn’t think the rose in the garden misses a wall to begin ending away. As if permission wasn’t a series of tiny lights antithetical to stars. As if a frozen cloud didn’t thaw under pressure. As if there is a backbone between left and right.

Most of the time news starts within a sunset.

How do we go to bed.

The stars asterisk history.

I hold your hand on the subway and the sounds stop.

I imagine there is snow on my bed when you’re not there.

I imagine far off in dread is an answer chanting.

With acute plastic pillowing, the stars snow.

A song is made of eyes that love you.

They smell like snow in rich text format of seasonless memory.

I think spring means someone’s illness has healed.

I used to be 19 years old.

A song is made of sugar and its syrup when you hear it.

Skin is sugar when you taste it.

By landscape I mean much more than what we are looking at.

I wish there was a wedding I could go to today to feel better.

Above screened smiles shared air is leaving. Sequin intonation and tuning morning. The equation is conjunctions and caramelization. Better than good is friendly but nervous. Sequin is a tangled breeze just morning. No longer hieroglyphic, the dim is incredible. Do you or don’t you feel as if you are just words in there.

Within sheets of wet origami every pause is less scientific honey. Static is a correspondence. A memory is an attempt to get back to the echo of a laugh. A subway bench neatly folded rests in afternoon.

Static is an attempt to get back to honey when it drips. Life is an attempt to get back to love³. An epiphany works for a bit. Confetti’s expiration date is smudged. The echo of a laugh is unwashed and dragging.

Confetti weaves laughter circling.

Branches origami.

Honey is an early orange.

A fruit peel hangs ajar. Blood is less red more pomegranate less scientific more honey. Sheets of wet static weave homesick trees into green into chartreuse. A memory is a date smudged. Concrete steams after it rains. Every pause is a beaded ornament. Every question collapses into a noble gas. Every color is Virginia. Everything clearly reflects when there isn’t much humidity.

A pink dawn is presented as fact. The garden hose hears the garden differently. A pink dawn is presented in similar versions. I look at the sky to see holidays. Afterall and adderall present versions of infinity differently. I would describe myself as doubting buoyancy. I would describe myself as a pronoun on its cellphone in public. I would describe myself as the bed of a body of water finally resting underneath the shade of a bridge. No one cries forever⁴. There is always danger in the making of a statement⁵. I heard today is a tradition of some sort. What does one do with sweat after sweating. I think I heard fiberglass say florets are eligible for summer vacations and holidays. I think I heard the garden hose say clouds threaten the sky of the roof. I think I heard a mosiac say I am a just a single piece of it. I think I’m left wondering in full at a pink dawn doubting buoyancy. I would describe it as the place in between two heads resting on one another.

Lapsed and dreaming a sunset flattens into blue like soda into walls under your tongue. Melt down all the sugar until it’s a church. The flavor of a seashell is thinking there’s a wet open. Have we forgotten singing. Today foliage is an abacus reflecting its maker. Wind is several memories lapsed. I haven’t secured this bit of skin yet. We talk thin like walls. We melt before we sweat. The half life of licking skin is unintelligible on arms. When do you learn your parents’ names. What do you do then. Look at the specials board. Were we once made one for a single hour⁶ and then lapsed into skin. All sunburns come individually wrapped. Have we forgotten memory lapses. Melt down the surroundings into a family portrait. Wind is late but singing. There’s foliage before there is any. Sitting outside with you I think of sherbert singing. Sitting inside with you I think of milk breathing yogurt. That’s a bargain for a cloud. Thin glass chimes into time as a birthday gift. In air there is a single hour along with the presence of a body we choose to forget made of winter, made of citrus, made of unrelated beliefs.

Describe yourself: Stopped. Coming to meet I just smell butter you say. Inside the sucrose velcro as inside the brushing my teeth. The has stopped. Did you did I? time lapse blooming.

A flat topaz hangs. Coming to meet the Williamsburg Bridge from blue has stopped. Coming to syrup as it slides from sugar from white. Did I what? You sweet as white as almost morning coming a thin line you in the almost after blue blushing. Midnight is frosting before it’s sweet. When bridges make that noise the bridges are they breathing?

Sucrose blooming into sugar turns to glitter. Butter blushing into midnight is frosting before sleep. A flat topaz hangs a thin line thin leaves on the branches. I’ve been so homesick brushing my teeth. Coming to meet you in the almost morning coming to meet hypothetically of course coming to meet inside and out. Through the window there’s a time lapse blooming. I watch sugar turn to syrup as it promised it would.

I say did you did i what you say. Butter melting. A pan. An umbrella is no good right now. Just leave the glitter. Black bodega bags in the trees chirp a zen applause.

Calluses are scars you control. I imagine stardust to be a mixture of filament, frost, and a kiss good night. You ask about the weather I say I’ll tell you when it’s ready. Seize the day, my heart⁷. We meet precisely at the now or never. Things mostly stay the same except the days. The thunderstorm will not neatly fit into my bag. In 2027 I’ll unbutton a shirt. This apartment’s tone of voice reminds me of talkshows. I’m sick of coke machines. I want orchards or groves. You cannot overcook a mushroom⁸. We seem to take better care of lawns than neighbors. Where are the help wanted signs for people. There was a point in time in which I thought a potato’s inside was potato, butter, and salt. I’d like to observe my childhood just to get a few answers.You ask about days.The pronunciation of nausea makes me feel it. You told me not to look at the five day forecast. Trash day is a museum of a week. I’m tired of God already. Is domestic the only word we attach both bliss and violence to. We seem to make better lawns than neighbors. You cannot attach bliss without a pin. For dinner we have lentils, window sills, and wicker. For dinner, we have Coke machines.The thunderstorm would frost and a kiss would feel it. Between two moments, bliss is ripe⁹.

A lemon lemons grating spring. A spotted cold, a still violet. The marigolds smell telephone lines. The corner zips itself into limes. Do you implies do you think you are. My mother stands next to the advantage of spring translating the sliding glass door before she cries. The syntax of a grapefruit is June. Windy violets articulate sizzling. Fireflies harmonize near the door before afternoon. Peel a lemon as if it were a potato; smell the difference. Glass is a paused puddle. My mother stands next to the sliding glass door sizzling before she cries. Harmony within hierarchy¹⁰ is a pair shoes on a telephone line. A grapefruit is just a lemon that saw an opportunity and took advantage of it¹¹. June zips the corner.. What is collected in that bowl right there is fireflies in a puddle. Unfasten the corner and the violets will sizzle. Translate the horizon growing in the marigold entrance. Thin a harmony. Take scrupulous notes on the logic of eventide. Do you implies should you which I don’t think so but did I yes.

Laundering we cannot guarantee a vanished history limited with a chance of closed on Sundays. An altered foam seas flesh vanish into a silver light into yellow into butter. There’s a century assembled inside that color. That’s why white milk makes yellow butter¹². A body pressed into a page is neither. An amplified light cannot guarantee color. For Sale: a new way of life¹³. An altered foam seas and histories of flesh vanish. The instant century is inside a vague possibility. White cream intrigues with a chance of a light silver aligning itself with pink monotony, pink mahogany. An amplification wavers a little. In laundering we cannot guarantee against color loss¹⁴. What hasn’t vanished. Light coffee is wilting unsteadily on amplified cream. In laundering bodies are pressed into a flesh. In laundering pureed bodies are pressed into pages.

There with the us and we fits a description of afternoon. An echo flutters into a sheet of glass. We sit shimmering in installments. An echo flutters into a plant into evening. Is sky-high an accurate unit of measure. I go back and forth. Do paintings pay royalties to evening. Physical capital is inside of a incremental night. Hang a song on the wall and lay down near it.

Remember:

1. carbonation is a lesson in impermanence
2. your keys
3. civilizations are a homage to trees

We repeat ourselves and for now my feet feel more like debris. For now a wave is largely summarized in raindrops. Of all time isn’t all time or all the time. And for now a plant is an accurate unit of measurement. And for now a rain drops into debris. It’s disarming to find oneself in love. A plant stretches in installments. We come and lay down besides it. We come carbonation. The thermostat is a pill we take. Wake up at your own risk. And for now I’ve planted my feet in hopes of tulips in hope of spring. I’ve planted my feet as an homage to trees. An ideal object is within the range of nature’s capability. What else is there to do in a living room than follow its instructions. An echo flutters into a sheet of glass. The view from here is sounds and their shapes are intelligible. Mist presents itself concentrically. Calm figments come out at high tide.

The paint manufacturer dreams about the obvious. I say lick the summer cube as it melts. It’s the somewhere else. An initial garden is embedded within the paragraphs neatly folded beside you without asking. An initial screening suggests leading bits of you. The vending machine’s math is obvious. The paint manufacturer dreams birthmarks in separate paragraphs neatly folded next to a ocean dressed as a ruffled tablecloth. An ice cube melts. It’s the exact middle of the month and they have nothing to say for themselves. The banana bread thinks of you. I write this to tell you so. A quiet gift unwraps itself modestly while something glows right beside you without asking. We talk about the obvious. I want to tell the calendar famous days belong somewhere else. An initial screening suggests a medium-sized list of people are just standing there looking. The entry way leads to Parietal walls, which leads to angels and grass, though the tuning fork doesn’t work in this humidity. Black and white photos are ground into dust right next to where your feet are.

¹Luis Barragan
²Lisa Jarnot, “Swamp Formalism: For Donald Rumsfeld”.
³Thick white marker on a pole, 2nd avenue and 56th street
⁴Mosaic on the corner of Meserole Street and Morgan Avenue
⁵Bernadette Mayer
⁶Algernon Charles Swinburne
⁷Man to wife, A train (8.4.2016)
⁸America’s Test Kitchen, Science: Why You Literally Can’t Overcook Mushrooms, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0fHS8-l_NU
⁹William Blake
¹⁰Man’s remarks at Zen Garden, Portland Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon.
¹¹Credited to Oscar Wilde. Source unknown.
¹²Harryette Mullen, S*PeRM**K*T
¹³Time Magazine cover story on William Levitt, developer of Levittown, first American suburban development, undistinguished in its highly segregated practices. July, 3, 1956.
¹⁴ Fine print of Melrose Laundromat--Dry Cleaning & Laundry receipt

Timothy Berrigan holds a MA in English from the University of Maine and a certificate from Columbia University's TESOL Program. His work has been published in friends’ chapbooks and on a postcard that circulated throughout central Pennsylvania. He works as a Literacy Advisor at a Brooklyn Public Library Adult Learning Center. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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