The Infrastructures of an Unmapped Sequence
Jasmine Melchor

There is a tower from which I escaped,
plunged through a spot of a glowing meadow,
and right past the arch of a man who misses the cave,
there is a fountain of liquid dust
who lets you see ahead of the furrow.

Above the viaduct is the steam of my ride,
but I need to scoop a gem-like drink from the well
and to solve the labyrinth in time,
and in my ever so unending quests,
I’ve learned that red fabric bleeds under soapy water,
which is off-on-a-tangent amidst the lines I’ve so far said,
but I’ve also grown to cry at majestic strings,
and if I ever live long enough
to catch the giant topiaries speaking,
I’ll pay a craftsman to build them an obelisk,
before I axe the gatehouse open
and leave the ranger at the bridge.

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Jasmine Melchor’s Comments

This started out of boredom, with absolutely no inspiration nor intentions. I just remember playing with the imagery of infrastructures for a few moments of scribbling down fragmented sentences. I revisited it days later, digesting the piece as though I was its reader, not its writer, and it suddenly meant something. That’s when I added the passage about the quests, the red fabric, the tangent, and the majestic strings.

I suppose one can only theorize what message accidentally formed itself along the writing process of this initially random poem.

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