more condominium environments

When I got out of my car, I heard a loud whooshing sound which was the water filling and rinsing the condominium's outdoor pool. I imagined the maintenance staff considering the air, the week of the month, weighing against probabilities of a surprise frost or cold snap, before nodding and deciding the season was ripe to turn the water back on. Even as I gather books from my passenger's side, the sound of the water could be the ocean lapping at the shore or a thousand finished corn stalks unified in April's hustling breeze.

What do you find when you're not looking?

Find the Couch for a Mini-Tantrum

I'm unwinding now

sorting out the clickety clack--

the old tire, the giant hook

the burger king collectors cup

filled with something only my

pet fish would tolerate

because he is red and braver than

me, of a hardier fin than my

frigid fit that stirs in 1 inch radiuses

the shock wave of a

millipede. Thats all part of the unwind

the big-de-wind, that starts as a gun shot

and wins in a stutter. This feeling is a fade

before a head ache or a glass of water with

the after taste of pistachio. Do you get me?

Do you resonate with what I'm saying?

I'll repeat this to the glass jar which is my igloo

while Paul walks out the window, having the nerve

to never forget his keys.

A lesson

Museum of Appalachia: I learned today, or at least solidified what I speculated, that the best way to tell people about things is to tell stories and leave in the question marks.

spring season vignette

When a girl was parking her car the other day, she noticed an injured robin near her parking meter. Its wings spread out from its tufty body as it awkwardly crouched in the grass. People on the sidewalk slowed when they walked passed it as if that acknowledgment saved them from doing anything. I'm not saying this robin was a dying child in the middle of the street, sort of. But what is there to be done? The girl thought about it as she went to class. If the robin was still there when she came back then she would slip it into a cardboard box (or if she didnt have that in her car than a plastic shopping bag), drive the bird to a wild animal clinic in Oak Ridge. This was a valient plan, she decided. But when class let out, she forgot to return so that when she finally remembered and got there another hour later, the robin was dead. Now what does that mean?

I was walking up from the library to the theatre, thinking about writing as I had just been reading about writing. I was going over in my head of another day where I as walking along this route. Bushes and bikes scattered in some meaningful rythm. This time its night and some of the bikes I only see out of the corner of my eye and they scare me. Though Im not sure what my brain thinks they can be, its not like litter that moves in the wind so you think its an animal. Last time I walked up the way it was windy, bright. Someone was wailing on their horn-- the university has moved all the music students to an abandoned dormitory to practice. The windows face the walkway which is too perfect, like a gateway lined up with a giant mouth yelling just persistantly enough for someone, a non-music student, to yell SHUT UP to one of the offensive windows. And tonight I am walking up thinking about this horn going and I hear it again, another saxophone. And its just right, swinging into everything, my steps are bringing me to it and the bushes and the bikes are spaced out for each of these notes. Its going WAH WAH WAH WOOOOW and I look up, halfway thinking to yell shut up but if I did I woudnt have meant it. A window was open, it was someone I knew. I yelled his name and felt like Romeo romancing. I think of other times with other saxophonists and am not sure how I feel about the cycleness of all things. If I'd rather it just not keep going around. Or maybe these are the good times.

books

My grandmother, who is 93, reads a lot of novels. She cant do a lot of things physically any more, so my mother runs to the library every week or so to bring back stacks of fiction novels for her. I read them, then I forget them-- my grandmother will joke. In her room, I found a little boutiqu-y book journal that someone, maybe my uncle, got for her. Its not more than 4 by 4 inches big, each page you enter the book title and author, a rating, and "comments" (three lines). Do you like using this?-- I ask her. The first few pages have comments written out in a spidery hand "Good book. Dont understand why the husband would leave his..." before running out of room. This happened a few more times: "Good book. How come children dont appreciate...", "Good book. Didnt like the ending, so sad that the woman who...". Eventually, as the pages went on, the comments turned into "I like this" "I liked this" "Good book" "Really good book"-- all better fitting of the tiny space. -- I didn't know how write in it at first, answered my Mammaw, but I like the journal now that I've figured out the right way to do it.