June 2009
24 posts
A foreign accent describing Jupiter keeps me awake. She makes up for each wrong aspiration with a shout, and misplaced vowel with a scream.
Offended I forgot his name, he yelled at me, ‘Barack what Obama? What?’ until his friend called him a cab.
The little girl in the sundress put on the laytex glove. ‘Where’d you get that?’ asked her tired mother. ‘The hospital.’ And back they went.
A plane is circling my hood, wasting fuel so it won’t explode during landing. I cross fingers it crashes near, so I can claim a sick day.
She threw her coat over the seat in front of her, causing the short man to stand. ‘Sorry,’ she said, taking it back and suppressing giggles.
The four ladies at the Jefferson Market Garden entrance were too focused on creating their ‘Help Wanted: Volunteer Guards’ sign to greet me.
When the bathwater turned red, I remembered cherries peak in June and started reconstructing my favorite pie recipe. The Percocet’s working.
Too preoccupied on catching the express, the woman didn’t notice her baby wrap came loose. We watched in terror as the dangling kid held on.
‘My eyes are red from insomnia,’ I said as I passed out on the operating table. Three hours later I’m half awake home. They ran out of beds.
‘Do I have to worry?’ she asked regarding my upcoming absence. I shook my head. ’ I’m a Jewish mother first and your boss second, you know.’
She threw the mess of quarters at me then took back three. ‘Five dollars,’ she said, verified by my slow count. ‘Atlantic City,’ she smiled.
Neither spoke the other’s language, but for two sunny hours the two families in the park became one. Similarly dressed toddlers the crux.
A crowd developed outside the library, wondering where the faint revving of engines came from. The boisterous Vespa gang were at it again.
‘The secret behind women,’ said my barber, ‘is when they’re naked, they uncover everything except their hearts.’ I nodded while he snipped.
To explain the suicide, the father read its definition from his iphone. ‘And when will he respawn?’ asked his kid.
When he made the corner, she let go of the branch. The tree swayed in the rain, dousing them both with leaf droplets.
‘What’s the point of an umbrella in good weather?’ he asked. ‘The only thing they’re good at blocking out is Tiananmen Square.’
His retirement watch now hangs freely on his wrist. ‘We’ll get rid of a few links,’ said his wife. But that won’t remove the aging.
We felt compelled to hold the door for the wheezing man climbing the steps, but when he reached the top he waved us away and lit his pipe.
Apartment 28D lets you rise every morning looking down at Diddy’s poster over Times Square. ‘I need thicker curtains,’ said the resident.
As he made the bed over me, he grinned between the sheets. ‘I’m not the last emperor of China,’ I said. And he replied, ‘If only.’
He took up two seats. His trash bags took up a third and fourth. In defiance, the lady with the cane sat on him. In turn, he enjoyed it.
Patrons listened intently to the man at the reference desk. ‘We charged a nickel a fact back in ought six.’ Then the real librarian arrived.