This work is part of TAG: A Poeta Project. It is a  response to Heat Lightening by Jennifer Ryan 

“Saturday, July 18^th – A response to Jennifer Ryan”

It’s the day before my birthday and Carly

and I are at Mike’s place on College St

for a garage sale

we’re picking up some Fleetwood Mac on vinyl

and while waiting for Mike to grab them

I start flipping through used copies of Ayn Rand

when Curt, who lives with Mike, declares

that the industry is dead

he’s referring to many things

theater, live music, infringement festivals

his band is

or was

called Anal Pudding

anyway, the ghost of Ayn Rand suddenly appears before me

she starts pulling toy trains out of thin air

while talking about childhood

miles of drywall and magician sweat

the music of soap, always asking

“What magic is this?”

sun floating in the kitchen

dishtowels on fire, clockwork trouble

or annihilation cameras, unsecured lightning

with nowhere to go, Ayn concludes by asking me

“Is it any wonder why we’re so ruthless?”

it’s then that I realize

all the cars parked on the street

are covered in moss like old churches

there’s worship here

I can feel it and deep down

I know there are better days ahead

when yellow jackets tell us to sit down

so they can teach us how everything happens

and when we ask what that means

they just laugh at our big, confusing bureaucracy

because we’re like echoes separated from conversation

a train carrying doors across the country

then it suddenly goes off the rails

outside some ghost town

and there’s no one around to open the future

but that is going to change

anyway, Ayn fades away toward Allen

carrying her books

we get our Fleetwood Mac records

but before leaving we give Curt a dollar

for one of the rocks he’s painted

how it shines in our hands

all the brilliant colors

 by Justin Karcher