i watch videos from the 80’s
after you tell me we should just be friends
if you were lonely
you could watch the tiny curls
being sewn onto a baby doll’s head
on youtube
sterile gloved hands spiral the hair
spinning and giving in to its orbit
it looks like violence
the fat needles that pierce plastic skulls
to give a little girl something to brush
but that’s just the way it was before
now no one cradles the head
i bet the cold metal of machine
doesn’t flinch
we continue to build what can replace us
saint mary’s of the maternity
i pull the polish phrases from the rafters
and take them into my mouth
they’re painted in white like the wafer
but they don’t dissolve when i mix them with spit
if you keep communion still on your tongue
it behaves how a dandelion would if you didn’t blow it away
something that foreign might taste familiar
the symbols up above me are signs
in an airport when i can’t find my gate
the polish alphabet has six more letters than english
just the usual suspects gussied-up in hats and tails
i wonder why they’re so overdressed
my lips purse and my teeth bite to try the sounds
but i can’t even answer the priest
when he says may the lord be with you
and i never learned how my ancestors said goodbye
only dzień dobry – good day – and jak sie masz – how are you?
i liked you in theory
that plastic bag tree just ruffled its feathers
you didn’t notice
a styrofoam peanut tumbleweed
you didn’t see it
i tell you gemini rising
and you scoff
at my dressed-up stars
the word obsidian doesn’t get you off
the way it does me
hot lava
smooth glass aftermath
babe, if you were a dashboard ornament
you’d be a raccoon
masked eyes that never stop shaking no
you can at least try to match my pitch
they always say people change or is it that they don’t?
i can never keep them straight
nicole v basta is the winner of the 2016 New School Chapbook Contest for her chapbook V and is the co-founder of the Brooklyn-based art collective/performance night Say Yes. She was an artist in residence at Art Farm in Nebraska this past October and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Forth, Public Pool, Canary, The Underground, Blunderbuss, and others.