January 2010
31 posts
‘Sassy cupcakes,’ they called me. So I threw the rest of the frosting away and left.
She walks backwards into full trains, betting people will step away and lead her to a seat. She guesses right.
‘It is always nice to see you,’ hums the nurse behind the pap smear. To the balls goes the catheter; I am thinking of your voice.
The restless sadness of our platonic sleep. Like a spork losing the last of its tines.
‘Peter Parker,’ she called his haircut. ‘No,’ I said, taking another good look. ‘Winona Ryder after going down on a Sigourney symbiote.’
I waved across the eatery and moved over. ‘How goes?’ I asked, placing my cutlery down. ‘Better ever since they drained my colostomy pouch.’
The rain offended Mrs. Lee, since it was laundry day and she had her umbrella on tumble-dry low. ‘Ai-ya,’ she said, shaking her wet head.
‘At least I’ve got great bladder control,’ said the old man to the other.
‘Well that explains why you’re so full of shit.’
‘Careful!’ she yelled. ‘There’s a baby behind you.’ Beneath three full grocery bags and a purse, there was indeed a child in that stroller.
He dribbles the ball into traffic, just so the older woman who scolds him gets a story to tell friends at bridge.
The roach crawled up the sleek tile wall and into the hand dryer, where we expect it lives.
The dreamy indescretions of last night stay there when our skins touched, and with that comes the apology. I truly am.
The last dregs of whiskey is like the river styx. You think you’re the only one hurting?
She turned to me at Penn’s Landing. ‘So this is where Ben Franklin landed the Mayflower.’ I nodded.
He followed me out of the market and into the park. ‘I like that cake mix too,’ he said. ‘Want to smoke up?’
She stepped gingerly past us, tired commuters, in her orange MTA jacket, and then radioed the station, ‘We’re going to need some tents.’
‘Still flying solo?’ The elevator rises. ‘Still flying. Still.’
Forced relaxation via headphones lead to less sleep from fears of drifting unconscious while the cord chokes my neck.
‘Did he go this way?’ stumbled the inebriated mom as she searched the janitor’s closet at Joe’s Pub for Alan Cumming.
She took pennies from her apron and paid my bill in full. They smelled of fish. But I am grateful.
Tony Conrad played earthquakes with an amped up fiddle by attaching to the tailpiece a string of beads pulled taut and sacrificing his bow.
‘I am so sorry to hear that,’ said the editor. ‘Which hospital is he in, and does he have a copy of the manuscript?’
‘Does she love you?’ she asks, ‘or is the minus in your grade sign she wants to be just friends?’
The math teacher leaned in and breathed. ‘That after shave smells just like my favorite student’s.’ The sound of a locker room going silent.
Sleep, you elusive beast. My eyelids you shall some hour feast. Right when I want you the least.
Cupcakes taste postmodernly unsweet when one forgets to bake with sugar. The secret ingredient is a distracting Antonioni flick.
He dropped the dollar, picked it up and then asked the man before him if it were his.
And they left him there, not because they didn’t care his home was 2 hours away, but because they knew his only remedy was an anonymous lay.
The numbness of the cold Atlantic prevented the pain of being hit by a wave of lost sandals from the other winter Coney Island bathers.
We made a wish a decade ago for every grape we ate at the stroke of midnight. The only one granted was yours: to die. I miss you, friend.