From a Fool's Perspective

A crow stirred on the telephone wire beside the electric pole adorned with transformers. Almost at her eye level, he adjusted his wings and settled into place. She sure knew how to pick 'em. But the clouds would come down to greet the earth. And everything would be free to be its own self. Leaning on the door jam, she raised her red coffee mug in salutation, glad to have him in the neighborhood.

Grey wool socks

She drove out to the boardwalk after their basset hound fell asleep. The dog was old and getting deaf. She’d never been a watch dog, but if she’d seen Ursula leave, she would sit and cry until she woke the house. No one was awake out here. She lifted the hatchback gate and pulled out the sleeping bag which she always kept there. The stars were still pretty faint from the neighborhoods looming on two sides of the wetland. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but her night vision was pretty good and she walked some distance into the swamp. She tugged her hat snugger and the cottonwoods whispered hoarsely at her for taking such a risk with her health. She zipped herself into the sleeping bag securely and sighed and slept. In the morning she could see her breath. She drove home and piled logs in the fireplace, the old hound worrying around her ankles like a cat. Hearing people begin to stir above and below stairs, she made coffee and a large batch of eggs. Setting it off the burner, she poured herself a mug and sat on the couch, tucking her grey wool stockinged feet beneath her. The basset hound set her head on the sofa cushion and looked up at her anxiously.

The cloud cover obliged and the weekend advanced with a swing beat

They moved through parallel lives after hours. Birds slept. The building heaved a sigh in appreciation of its solitude, humbly cradling the night watchman. No superman swept overhead. A boat wept in the harbor. Transsexuals laughed, stumbling home in fantastic heels. Tom Waits smoked a cigarette at the edge of a gas station twenty-seven miles out of town, casting the glowing butt away. The trees all wore the veils of widows. A glass bottle shattered into the silence of 35th street. A girl wished to be loved like the Taj Mahal. The moon glared down at them all jealously.

La Morte de la Fay

Two girls ordered and sat next to a window spattered with the remains of an aging hurricane. One of them spoke of Mexico with reluctant longing. The other couldn't stomach the syrup in the bottom of her coffee and silently agonized over the unknowable predictions of her grinds. Together they lay out before them a map of their lives, while slowly, slowly chiseling away at a slice of key lime cake or peanut butter brownie. Outside lights began to struggle against the misty, damp gloom swept far up from the Gulf to the August graveyard of all such storms. Each girl was grateful for the weather, allowing for opened tall window sashes softly billowing curtains and sweaters usually reserved for Oktoberfest. Also the cool, wet pavement of the parking lots lent a brightness to the tentative shapes of their future.