I hold my cards
close to my chest
on this night that is
oh so close.

No fan
to blow
air into my face,
not that it would
matter anyway.

The air
would just
remind me
that it is hot
this summer night.

I am drinking beers
while the fruit flies
are sharing with me.
No sense
in picking them
out of the cup..
more will arrive.

The woman
who lives upstairs,
how can she ride her bike,
on such a summer night.

I hear her,
it's the sound
of rowing,
a creak-creak-creak.

88 Willow,
the building with eight dwellings.

Through the open window
I hear a dog barking,
maybe two, three blocks away.

This building that I live in,
where the walls
are so thin
you know that
they have ears.
Have ears to hear.

Creak-creak-creak..
the woman is rowing,
her rowing machine rows
out into a great big sea
of imagination,
where there
is every kind
of sea creature
that you can conjure  
up in your mind.

And her
boyfriend, a fine
painter and sculpture.
He wants to do the
cover of my next book..

And I think, like that's ever going to happen.

My good friend
was over tonight,
he told me a story about
how he proposed
to his 'maritime' woman.

She cried and she cried
after she saw the ring,
not because it was so small,
but because she was
beside herself
in joyful delight.

I envy what it is they have,
but what they have
requires work, hard work.
They have one tried and true
partnership.

We talked about
reaching out to extended family,
as well as brothers and sisters in blood.

Me, of my own,
my father is turning eighty.
Eight decades and I know him not.
He fought
in the Korean War
and I've yet to ask him
about it.
Not once in my life time
has he even smelled
the wartime memories
that I am sure waft up
on occasion.

Now back to 88 Willow.

There is a drunkard
living in a basement apartment.
His legs are going
from wet brain.

He only calls me when
he is drunk.

He has two drinks and
he starts fumbling worse
than a line backer
intercepting
a foreword lateral pass.

I don't want to move,
though I know I have to,
to keep on keeping on,
I've got to move,
I have to move.


© 2013