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.
