Many of my concerns are municipal in nature.
The cars on Savin Hill
assume weird angles. The trees bend,
one by one, to the November wind
ripping through right on time. Trees
aren’t always prepared but I’ve learned
November is a hazard. Limbs detach
from trunks and the broken cores
leak Styrofoam on the road. Floods
of teenaged Cristo Rey students
flow from the subway station and
cross the street without looking,
exactly like I do. I jacket myself
just like everyone does these days–
one puffy sleeve at a time. Buttons
separate traffic signals and walk signs.
I ignore their pebbly symbols
just like everyone else. It’s too cold.
I’m tired of standing still.
– Abbie McCabe…
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the last beam
of evening glow
…………dancing
over blades of grass
windows rolling down
wind whooshing
through my hair
…………his hand
grasping my thigh
i tug my sweater
pretending i’m shy
then lightly
…………slap him away
we count deer
…………grazing
along the parkway
one
two
three
wondering
if they too
…………play
little games
– Rebecca Dietrich…
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Tailing an unsuspecting fugitive on Route 93, just north of Kingman, Arizona, Maddy passed a wrecked car. The vehicle, an older model, four door, dark green sedan, had settled on its roof, resembling an upside-down turtle. Black smoke billowed, rising into the late afternoon sky. The low, looming sun resembled an overripe blood orange.
“Looks like I’ll have to catch up to Lester another time,” Maddy said.
She pulled her Yamaha motorbike to the side of the road and surveyed the wreckage. “Oh, man…”
A teenage girl crawled through the space where the driver’s side window had been. The two adults looked like mangled ragdolls.
Maddy knelt next to the lone survivor. She had long black hair and multicolored bangles on a badly bruised right arm.…
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“Last night? I dreamt of something called Competitive Nut. You go into a store with an exotic nut, bring a few in a little box,” I explained. “They clean them off for you… to your specifications of course… and you eat it.”
“What do you mean by exotic?” She gave me a smile. “Maybe because I was there?”
“No,” I said. “You weren’t there.”
I remembered another dream from since I had last seen her. It was at work, in her office, but she wasn’t in that one either. Instead, a kid I’d grown up with and who I hadn’t thought about in a long time was in the dream, working where she worked, her office, at her white board.
“OK, my turn,” she said. “We’re at a country club, playing golf. …
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It’s not that I don’t trust motherfuckers, I just didn’t trust him. Something I heard somewhere, sometime, about never eating at a place called Mom’s or playing poker with a dealer named Doc. But he didn’t cheat me out of money playing stud, he cheated with my girl. I don’t know any sayings about shit like that, but that’s neither here nor there. I had plans to leave her anyway. Smelled soaps of others on her soft skin. I’m not one to stand alone in the chapel, a crown of thorns on my head. Makes no sense. Besides, it’s not like I can call the Righteous Love Police. And now, she’s rides in a BMW—I think he’s a fucking dentist or doctor of letters—and I watch sunsets with a dog named Blue and a bottle of Johnny Red.…
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I distinctly told her that I didn’t want tomato on my hot
pastrami and cheese sandwich, but sure enough when
I got home and took the sandwich out of the wrapper,
I saw that on both halves there was tomato pressed against
the cheese, which made me say out loud, “Damn it. . .
I made it clear that I didn’t want tomato in my sandwich.
That I don’t like tomato in my sandwiches!”
Deciding not to take it back—mainly out of hunger—
I pulled out the tomato, which had done a fine job
permeating the cheese in both halves.
I then started eating while looking at the tomato lying there
on the paper, wondering why they even put tomato in sandwiches
or anywhere else for that matter.…
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When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Oscar Wilde
The Senior Center science class softened my recent widowhood—we read ScienceNews, a weekly magazine filled with mid-level science sophistication. The class offered me structure and companionship.
The medical section was placed after the astronomy update that explained the expanding universe and the ripples in spacetime caused by colliding black holes. We often skipped the ripples and jumped to the human evolution side of history, especially our interactions with our Neanderthal cousins, who ruled the planet for 100,000 years before we nudged them out of existence. Next came the article about a new drug for the treatment of progeria. The story caught my attention, like spotting the first hummingbird of spring kissing my trumpet honeysuckles.…
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