if | Keira Deer
Masses would not have cried
for days on end, nor would the streets
outside The Dakota be littered
with poster board—a quarter of the alphabet
torn and strewn along the street,
the letters I M A G I N E painted
in black—and something of a blood stain
on the ground. John would be
alight with life, sitting naked
on a plastic cube and tickling
the fraught ends of his vocal cords—
new bars for the next great album
off Geffen Records: a legioned fantasy,
the accordioned fold of each note stretched
out, John tilting his head to see
the vibrations that hum from his throat
moving the folds in various different lights.
The wailing ambulance and winding red
siren would not bend through the streets
of New York to find him there, dead—in fact,
John is rearranging the abandoned
letters of poster board now,
sitting on a bench in Central Park,
spelling I, ENIGMA
on the ground at his bare feet,
his sneakers kicked away at some length,
eyes squinting behind lenses
to sketch a man: alight with life, barefoot
on a bench, with vines of strawberries sprouting
from his shoulders like wings,
ripening for flight.
about the author:
Keira Deer is a writer and poet based in Southern California. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University, and her work has been published in Scapegoat Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, and Halfway Down the Stairs, among others. She can be found on Instagram @keiraswords.