These days, I stir a train of mornings
in a cup to dilute a sweetness for my tongue,
still deprived of skies distilled in shades
of blue. Or maybe I’m inside those shades
already, holding me the way I hold
my cup with both my hands, sipping
everything I see beside a window where
a flock of birds can leave me stranded
on the second sip, as they revise directions
in the wind, full of formless skies
& plans I thread & rearrange in sticky
notes & calendars, always sucking up to
blacks & blues in the movements of my pen
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Michael Caylo-Baradi is an alumnus of The Writers’ Institute at the Graduate Center (CUNY). His work has appeared or is forthcoming at The Adirondack Review, Across The Margin, Hobart, JMWW, Kenyon Review Online, The Common (Dispatch), Eunoia Review, New Pages, Ink Sweat & Tears, the Galway Review, The Halo-Halo Review, Third Wednesday Magazine, and elsewhere. He is the author of Hotel Pacoima, released by Kelsay Books in 2021.
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