A serviceable pool of light drips into dream while my father haggles to highway back before the sundown’s scrim. Which really is dark’s absence, strip malls and invitation, the slightly rancid smell of frying clams. I cannot grasp the magnet of his East– the lure of foul Elizabeth, how cities always stink with raw desire.
Quaffing a medium mug of a Belgian ale Brewed, the brasserie sign says, since 1240, What a surprise to have Hutch Hutchinson’s name Surface in my only slightly befuddled brain! Hutch whom I have not thought of for a lifetime. But then, I did not know him well; Boys together, we were not chums. Only,
Just Down Wilkinson Street, He Lived I was still yet a boy, And weasel-faced Warren Metcalf was Also. But he was the leader Of a gang, of which I was not a part Though I yearned to be. One day – just that one – he relented, Letting me range with them Through our neighborhood;
The sky, the horizon, my love for both Love for people – family, friends Honesty eternal, it never ends Truthful engagement, heart and soul – Follow the sky up to the stars Or horizon’s line that mankind mars Pathways followed, dead ends, or none The journey, life’s lessons, go where you will Learning continues if
Late at night my husband and I go into the kitchen. We prattle about this and that: who’s eaten the most apple pie? What to cook for the next dinner party – the regular? Lasagne? And which cat is that intoning a nocturne outside our door? We scrutinise the glued pan handle, contemplate when the
I With ruler and protractor I appraise the clavicle. II Among 206 human bones the only long one lying down is the clavicle. III A shoulder blade, a clavicle and a sternum are almost one, all three girdle magic appeal in place. IV Little key, open sesame, clavicula rotating access. V A stiletto heel finely
Next door, neighbors shuffle junk in their yard, scrap metal and rusted-out appliances to resell on weekends. Across the street, two girls play hopscotch in a driveway, screechy giggles trilling through windows of our house, where a ticking clock stabs silence like a needle without thread. Staring at the muted TV as if scrolling text
here, I’m in Hell, my scars plain to see, there’s no drama – stolen – no one knows me now. That time I was living insanely, I used up my words, made an ass out of myself. I am danger, everything to lose, down so low my brain stops – I’m not myself. Wearing basement
in her worn dressing gown she leans over our falling down fence asks me if i’m doing ok i tell of ongoing tests and painful biopsies waiting on cancer results it’s not looking good her eyes mist over concerned and with care i glance at a graze on her hand and wrist magpie lands near
a tall thin man dressed in a filthy frock shuffles along these streets each day i drag myself along them too on trodden grime we separately seek our own evaporating reasons for these solitary rambles to anywhere else but the wasted now of this weeks of passing each other without word spoken no nod or
