David M. Alper: 2 Poems

Gentrification's Monsoon

hulked metal, modern necropolis

the shallow birds of paradise

drying paint on native skin

orange beak and claw

bones of old industry

bursting gusting

her blood ticks

waiting

paint

Color By Number

You unabashedly annotated

my new copy from Hatchards.

I just wanted to read “Woods etc.”

but you were all over it, completely.

Deliberating about Alice Oswald,

Chatting about Nabokov's Pale Fire

You even pronounced it like that,

With a long “boh.” He looked at numbers,

and saw colors He saw our condition:

color by number, the confined are captivated,

as we were, your coquettish fingers

curtained over my hand

in your London flat's foyer,

seats 24H and 24K on a flight the day prior,

August, twenty eighteen.

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David M. Alper is a high school AP English teacher in New York City, residing in Manhattan. His work has appeared in Tilde Lit, In Parentheses, Glassworks Magazine, and elsewhere.