here's to the world

One of the toasts we made last night over dinner was here’s to the world working out. My friend and I, she about to depart on a new life in the South, a new place, a new home, a new job, and it suits her already, like a sparkly pair of earrings. I can see its glow. I know she'll be great, although I'll miss her terribly. We toasted to all the new lives around the table—there were many. And then my friend raised a toast to the undying optimism of Ali Stine.

I'll drink to that, I said. And everyone did. The glasses clinked. We swallowed.

In the interest of that, in the hope of the world working out, I ask it this—-and readers too—-for these three things:

1) an apartment in NYC from late June-late September
2) a subletter to take over my San Francisco apartment
3) a part-time job in NYC

My offering is molasses. My offering is a poem written on a paper towel. A banana leaf. A gingersnap. An unfolded paperclip. A blizzard of eyelash. The only lemon from the tree in our yard. A lock of my hair. Wherever I go, I seem to find sequins. I promise you, city, it won't be that hot. The air will be light with carousel tunes. The moon will be full for days and days. I’m not the one writing these things on the sidewalks, but I will be, if that’s what it takes.