Poetry Free Writing, 9.11.06
Listening to the new Bob, Modern Times, as my backdrop soundtrack:
I let my cats run my life, refuse to move them even when my neck hurts and my legs get a cramp. I hide my handbags in a clever sauna benchmark. I lived in a church, slept in a bed next to an oil furnace. I seized opportunity, fled fancy for a state of imagined grace. I opened my eyes and the river was rising. I emptied my veins and the river dried up. I sent my shrieks to the heavens, high no higher and when no one heard, swallowed them whole again. I danced on tiptoes, tapped my way to a smooth wooden shelf. I combed my hair until the curls re-arranged themselves and straightened out. I clasped a baby not sure where to put my hands—beneath his head?
I taught myself to wake, no alarm clock, middle of the night, and scribble a record of my dreams. I ran in circles until I was dizzy crazy panting and the only thing left to do was pull my knees to my chest, fetal position.
I stared into the shimmer, Venezia ponte, calle, canal. Dragged my self from New York City, late afternoon of September 10, 2001. Escape from the heat, the muggy, the miserablenss of the difficult personality of my only child, my son. Drove into suicidal thunder, trucker-eclipsing rain and that was preferable. At the time, yes, that was. When the 17th street levee in New Orleans breached, the other heart inside me broke.
Bob is right, the world has gone berserk. For now, I sit here, cricket-accompaniment, fancying I'm exempt.
