Hoarfrost and moss

She lowered her tongue, curling the edges and forcefully spat. The gob burst on the pavement a story below the viewing deck with a modestly satisfying thwack. Her shoulders remained tense however as she jammed her fists into the pockets of her slate down vest. Ursula burrowed into the vest as she unhappily scanned the wetland before her. It was late in the year for many birds.

The last rumor to reach her said the werewolf had been near the border in late October. With her furrowed brow she cursed him. As though her blind, uncomprehending animosity might have any effect on him whatsoever. With a huff of clouded breath, she pivoted and climbed down the ladder. She stalked down the wooden boardwalk into the swamp, the malcontented rhythm of her footfall frightening off any remaining wildlife.

The cottonwoods clattered paper dry skeletal leaves at her in rebuke and she huffed again. Yellowed grass rustled only slightly and she stopped in the utter silence of dusk stirring its foggy digits over the water. She squinted at the dying sun and glanced down at her Grandpa’s dusty binoculars, resting over her belly. Screwing her eyes shut tight, Ursula put down an impulse to stomp her foot like a child. She listened. It was quiet still. Winter had come, werewolf or no. Winter had come and she was glad.

November Thunder

She felt the energy on her ride home.
It was going to storm tremendously.
In about an hour.
Her blood stood up and answered and she wanted a midnight adventure.
Looking from the sullen ruby cloud ceiling and the lights over the bridge, she glanced down on the glittering parking lot and saw the werewolf walking at a distance.
The wind kicked up and the paper factory on the river glowed behind the trees.
“Florescent lights engage, blackbirds frying on a wire,” she hummed.
Vertigo was building up behind her eyes like a migraine.

All over the coast

The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg nailed her in the solar plexus and for a moment green lights at the end of docks swum before her. Smiling winningly, she breathlessly stepped past him. To her horror her heart was pounding like a panicked bird trapped in a house, making her thoughts into zeppelins colliding and tangling themselves up in their haste to stay out of reach of the gorilla scaling the tower.
At the end of the week, she revisited drives to Toledo and Detroit in winter. She marveled over how much significance a silent phone could have. So restless, she shifted through the ashes of friendships one more time. As ever, her hands shook, and her weary eyes watched the horizon of a clear sky with mistrust. The loan hadn’t come through. That was disaster enough for now. She didn’t feel like doing anything, calling anyone, eating anything. Her heart lay stunned on the ground after two bouts of beating against the windowpane in a panic. She pried an ornate silver key out of the sandy soil, embedding dirt deep under her nails. Rubbing her thumb over the pattern crest she wiped it clean. She worried she would have to pawn it. And Martin Espada knew all about pawn shops.

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.

We marked a month on our calenders

and craved flannel and the arching spark of campfire conversation.

Athena helps us

She set the camera and lightmeter down beneath a tree, looking on with satisfaction at the view of the Talmadge. Overhead a noisy bird concurred and gave her his blessing

Days like these she remembered the dream of the owl biting her hands, and woefully gave thanks that it had not recurred.

And it sounded something like this

Endless numbered days

Gustav ushered in some relief. She found herself sitting on the roof overlooking a verdant backyard in the morning light. The house was a giant centennial thing sectioned charismatically into apartments where the rising sun made the eggshell blue walls seem crisp and playfully painted sheets of paper inviting. They talked about the things that they were wont to talk about once more before parting for a season. Having trimmed one another's hair and shared clove cigarettes and a great deal of simple human affection. Lying on the rug next to the record player the night before, she observed a true difference in the sound of a vinyl. It filled the room, as though it had a presence. She wanted to string these tranquil moments together like beads, to wear them around her neck wherever she went as a rosary of small moments of bliss. With great reluctance, she tread down the fire escape.

All alone in the branches

Some of the trees were giving up and dropping out without any roman candle flares. Yet summer held fast her reign. Voices the only thing lifting the veil, sitting wearily in the shade of a thinning oak tree.

Days too long, nights too short.

The unsophisticated determination of the red blooded redneck was not to be underestimated in its power to exhaust all verbal wit and fuel the blackest of moods. She didn't like heat, didn't like slapping at mosquitoes, or unimaginative, cock-driven boys.
Sweltering heat brought to bear again the piercing droning grind of the meat saw in the cutting room. It brought to bear the crude wants of late middle-aged men which were only vocalized under cover of the prevalent whining sound. Also goaded, a young, outstanding specimen of white trash shifted into a frolicking sort of desperation. Lest she should escape un-fianced, and far more pointedly, un-boned. She sidestepped, blocked, belittled, and undermined tiredly. Caught in the flow, she was as ready to spit on any knights errant as be rescued by them. The weather report was unpromising.

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.