the way he sprawls across this city, like
it could be my bed. He leans into the pillow and winks,

says to get comfortable. The owner of the juice store
is confiding in me, says Venmo took
all her money. If I were her, I would be

beside myself, but I am late for work. I leave
            her with my wishes. It is morning. Everybody arrives:
cold wind off the Hudson, shared amber glow

of the sun and streetlights. The whole wide world if I forget
my neck and look his way too fast. At the restaurant,

I carry trays of kobe sliders through crowds
of wealthy Italian families. They say they have been waiting

all night for me. I sneak cheesecake with coworkers
and wonder if anything has ever been as much mine
            as the man at table forty-two asks for more

water. I want to make good by everybody, so smile and pour
            in terrified rivulets. I am trying to tell you 

that every hurried stranger is my cousin and the boy holding
            roses is my brother. Everybody tells me
to stay focused. He is the sweat down my back

            and the clean it becomes. Everything
I ever bought with my own money to say, look at me

living a life. He is uproarious and hilarious
            and rooting for me. Everybody knows I am
everything that made when I am myself:

             my mother in her white shirt and tie,
asking the bartender, What is a roman coke? 

Apologizing to the man at the table when he says,
            It was good, but next time
                        could you put some rum in there? 

Everybody laughs at my jokes and leaves
            generous tips. Everybody loves me
at a cost tonight. Beloved like my mother, 

            asleep on the couch back home,
Turkish soap running without her. I will pay my bills 

             like she did. I will lie when she asks
if the walk home is cold, look up at the throat of my life
             and know I was swallowed. 

Everything that made me and still I am
            no miracle pill, but some days, I believe
that everybody loves me back. And when he sets 

             the bed on fire, he is hanging on my every
                         yet to be said word. And maybe this 

is my only language, the way I have never actually been in love with anybody,
             but I take the bus home. I burn 

my tongue on the cheapest pizza in Hoboken,
             watch the beautiful thirty-somethings stumble and catch
the weight of each other. The bus is late. An offer 

of unreasonable motion. Down the salt water
street is a prodigal chorus, everybody singing, Here come our children!           

                                    Romancing where we seeded
                                    the earth, taking care
                                    what they leave forever in new earths

Philipe AbiYouness is a Lebanese-American poet from New Jersey. His work has appeared in Best of the Net, New England Review, Mizna, Muzzle Magazine, Porter House Review, and elsewhere. He is an MFA candidate at Rutgers University, Newark.

Marina Kappos (b. 1972) received an MFA from Yale University, School of Art in 1997 (New Haven, CT) and a BFA from the California Institute of Art in 1995 (Valencia, CA). She has exhibited extensively including solo shows at China Art Objects, I-20 gallery and Tokyo Wonder Site, Institute of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan. For her debut exhibition with SHRINE, You You You, Kappos presents a large-scale grid installation of “vibrating” paintings, all measuring 36 x 36 inches. The presentation mimics the pulsing rhythms and energy of individual paintings, and the effect is reminiscent of large speakers at a concert or stadium. Kappos has created a visual wall of sound that amplifies the presence of individual works while linking the group of paintings together. Her subjects are abstracted reflections of us all, and they engage with each other and also the audience directly. The works are optically active, tricking the eye with repeating hazy forms, and dance within their confined spaces like echoes. The exhibition will be open at SHRINE until April 16.