Mizumi

 

Mizumi 17,5 x 12,5 cm Monoprint on paper

 

 

 

 

TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER

 

Wind, rain and hail coming all at once

making a mess of everything that

grows here. There’s some serious flooding

so we should be talking about the weather.

But I commune with Radiohead instead

and there’s no one around to say I shouldn’t.

We can label this the upside of solitude.

The downside being I’m the only person left I

can fight. Seen from any angle this is not a win-win.

Inventory includes a blood-pressure cuff and a

new pair of shoes as stiff as a neighbor’s smile.

Some European food porn. A few dozen tattered Penguins.

If dignity is a jewel of life that must be earned

then I am sure I left mine at a pawn shop—possibly El Paso,

maybe Bakersfield. Plus I have no idea what I did

with the money I got for it except that I ended

up in a place where a good breakfast is

suspiciously cheap. There may have been a girl

on roller skates doing tricky turns in a parking lot. Everyone has  

to feel lucky once or twice in a lifetime. Everyone has to feel

that the worst thing that can happen is a bad  

interpretation of the facts on the ground—which I think

was Tahoe. When the roller-skate queen in pink knee-pads face plants

I help her up, wipe off the blood with an old tea towel,

talk a little about the heat, then offer to buy her a 99 cent breakfast.