Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                 The Widder-Woman Who Lives Down the Road

There’s a widder-woman who lives down the road
She used to work for a veterinarian
Whenever a stray tomcat comes to visit
She castrates it on her kitchen table

Sometimes she invites me over for supper

This morning we jogged early
I was back in my flat by six-thirty
From my tenth floor view of the Charles River basin,
The morning was incandescently flushed by the peach-colored sun.
The transparent clouds seemed stylistically stained, artfully workshopped, which offered a softened, Tiffany glass effect wholly worthy of worship.

I can’t stop to admire it. I’m jamming things into suitcases.
Cramming things into boxes, giving things away.

I had a second interview Monday afternoon, for Johns Hopkins med school. They put the question to me:
“The semester starts in 18 days - can you do that?”
“Yes,” I replied, and just like that, I'm a Blue Jay.
Of course, I had to withdraw from the masters program but Harvard gave me a full (95K) refund - I think they’re more excited about my med school admission than I am.

I’m not afraid of discordant notes.
They change the landscape.
Take us to new emotional places.
Any major work is going to have them.
.
.
A song for this:
Hang on Little Tomato by Pink Martini
It's Amazing by Jem

Forgive the hush that now occurs,
A silence stitched in threaded verse.
For once, my inbox, proud and keen,
Was flooded like a monsoon scene.

Each gentle ping - a heartfelt spark,
Now chimed like hail in growing dark.
Not lack of love, nor fading flame,
But self-defence, in kindness' name.

So settings changed, with weight and care,
To catch my breath, to clear the air.
The flood abates, the heart stays near,
I’m still right here, I still revere.

Your echoes linger, soft and wide,
In inbox trimmed, you still reside.
So if a note feels slow to rise,
Know absence blooms where peace now lies.

Play it slow-
not for romance,
but because the strings are blistered,
and every note splits the sky
with fire.

Stroll through the panic,
it’s routine:
duct tape on the windows,
radio on low,
a list of missing birds
tacked to the wall
like fallen saints.

You said you'd carry me,
but the world’s gone grey,
and the olive tree’s
just smoke now.

There’s no audience left.
Just wind
and its thousand-watt warning.

Still, your spine curves to the rhythm
like a fever dream from Babylon,
hips like warning sirens,
ankles sunk in ash.

I want to understand
what we ruined,
but only at a pace I can stand,
only with eyes closed.

There was a time
we dressed like lovers.
Now it’s mylar blankets
and filtered masks.

We knew the promise;
we broke it anyway,
above it,
beneath it,
inside it.

Someone keeps whispering
about children,
as if hope still blooms
in poisoned soil.

Play it slow,
with bare hands if you must.
But don’t pretend this isn’t a requiem.
Don’t dress it up in velvet or vows.
Just let the music float
and burn,
like everything else.