Danielle Ben-Veniste

I. Washington, DC (#2)
II. Washington, DC (#3)
III. Washington, DC (#7, Charlottesville)
IV. About Danielle


Washington, D.C. (#2)

Nick and I were southbound, slowly on Conn.
Avenue. Nearly everything was closed.
I suggested that New Year’s Day was just
a giant scam but my heart was no more
than half invested in the argument.
I said, Nick, I’ll probably never write
the novel I want to because it has
already been written by Fitzgerald,
the bastard. We were both very tired
by the time we got home. Are you nervous?
he asked. I told him it was bordering
on dread. He stood and put on a record
of Swedish Christmas songs and said, Doesn’t
it sound like they have no worries at all?

Washington, D.C. (#3)

Record amounts of rain had fallen on
Washington and all our weathermen were
agitated by the uncertainty;
they looked to the almanac, which knew no
more about when the spell would end. It did.
No one cared anymore, least of all me.
I had you outside smoking cigarettes,
sounding as vague and prosaic as I
used to, but so much more courageously.
Look at this city, you said; it’s all words.
And so it was. I’d write them down later.
We dug into the gravel with our shoes
and the lines we scratched out, and the hills of
pebbles in between—this was enough for me.

Washington, D.C. (#7, Charlottesville)

Two raccoons will be dead on the asphalt
road through the valley, all gutted and slack
luminosity in the headlight and
the rough hewn lip of the moon. Admiring
them together there will make me homesick
for Washington as I knew her three days
in July, nearly on fire; weren’t we
careful with each other for a moment.
God damn the summer for daring to end
and to return to us a year older
declaring its mutilated sameness.
What would it take to heal you, I’ll wonder
as I hurtle away from the bodies
and into the extraordinary night.