Pursuit Predation

Arrived at work a full hour early due to the World Series victory and half the state taking the day off to scream at the parade. Time enough to take a walk in sub-freezing temperatures felt along the fingers and across the cheekbones, a quickening in the lungs with each breath drawn. Up a residential side street quiet with occasional renters and owners taking out trash or leaving for work.

I don't belong here. Some of them have suspicious eyes which suggest as much. When their eyes touch me, I begin to change.

Made a left turn downhill toward the river. Two pedestrians merged onto the same street heading in the same direction on the opposite sidewalk. They are walking together. They are wearing hooded sweatshirts like me. Unlike me, their hoods are up. I cannot see their faces. They walk quickly. A minute after I notice them, one of them peels right without speaking and enters a house.

She is now aware of me so walks faster trying to stay ahead. Something in her alertness changes me further in the direction the eyes started to. Her face is covered, but I can see her breath. She is wearing leggings. I know why she is out here so early, what moves her so quickly.

Everything looks different now but the river. She cuts across the grass and enters a condominium complex. I've changed completely. Someone else is possible again.

Everything's turned brown and is glazed in frost. Fog rises a few feet above the surface of the Merrimack. People passing in cars try to look at my eyes, but I am wearing sunglasses.

Nancy Stohlman's Flash Challenge

I've accepted a writing challenge for the month of November. Author and professor Nancy Stohlman is sponsoring a Flash version of  National Novel Writing Month in November.

I've failed twice endeavoring to write a novel in a month.

Flash is defined, for this purpose, as a story under 1,000 words. There's a Facebook page set up for participants which is said to feature writing prompts. There are no real rules beyond writing a story a day. I intend to post them here in whatever form they take.

As Though Seen With My Own

Your friend has cyanosis
Someone ought to tell him
He's hanging on the back of the door
His body seems ashamed
I do not like to open doors
For this very reason

See Michael Gira Perform if You Have The Opportunity

Pub

Waiting for traffic to subside in a bar full of Irish transplants featuring over priced food and charming accents. Outside a downpour ensues - thunder, lightning and bright sunshine. Rumor of  waterspout in the Cape Cod canal a few miles south. I have a nagging cough. GERD related. Denial isn't making it go away. Annie Lennox is singing her sweet dreams sexily, androgynously.

The after work crowd is moving in. It's getting noisier by degrees, and my tension follows suit. Beto is talking his ass off in Texas, and I'm wishing him the best, kind of helplessly, cheering listlessly from the couch. I'm thinking about putting my fist in the eye of the shithead who speaks for those tiki torch frat boys who call themselves proud. He says he wants more violence.

The world is precarious, always, and now we get a little taste. So with that I return to what's right in front of my face.

Push off the GERD thoughts
Finish your beer
Take your place in line on the turnpike
Go back to sleep. 

Miner For A Heart

Waking to imagining the scent of you on the pillow,
Even though I can no longer recall exactly what that was like,
Then imagining your daughter taking her first steps
Running some sort of clock in my head without information
Like one might do while trapped in a mine a mile below the earth

The other day, I saw a woman with a face close to what I
Remember yours looking like, she had the unsmiling look
Of striving like you often did back when I used to try to
Send you peace of mind.

It's October now, and the first night below freezing has passed
I am still above water, if you want to know, wondering how this
Can still be so one-sided after all this time

Do you ever think this way?
Knowing might be like pumped in oxygen

Arriving way down here

To Mississippi

The road from Monroe to Vicksburg was straight and flat. Trailers of hay bales and yams, cotton fields and brown water bayous, black bear crossing signs, road killed raccoons and armadillos. After crossing the bridge spanning the mighty river, I read the sign about the siege during which Ulysses Grant shelled the city forcing the survivors to shelter in caves. I met a girl in that town who couldn't understand why I'd come. "Why wouldn't you go some place nice?"

Some Shit I Heard

Very strong. Good man. Good body.
Real Women Love Jesus.
Pumpkin spice Bloody Mary.
The Republicans are stealing the vote
From the people.

Family

"Please. You are my brother" the stranger said as he paid for my sandwich.

What Makes It Difficult

First it was quiet as his breathing evened out
Then there was an awareness of this lack of tension
Somewhere hard to pinpoint
But his shoulders felt broader
His chest cavity felt deeper
His inhalations drew in longer, slower, calmer
Then the walls surrounding the cavity came down gently
Then all membranes dissolved
And there was a vastness
Not emptiness - full, open, synchrony
His heart was steady thunder
Strong, true and warm
This feeling of truth
Radiance

He waited for that feeling the night before last
After it was over, he looked for it
His shoulders had come down a little
But not the rest of it

Mourning This Morning

Grief is internal, and I'd say it lasts as long as it must.
Mourning is external, a public step forward from a place of grief.
It's an act, like throwing away the sheets you bought for my bed
Last slept in by you almost two and a half years ago now, I didn't
Mark the date, but I did maintain a physical relationship with
A trace of your blood for all this time. Today, I picked a long black
Strand of your hair off the mattress while remaking the bed.
I always thought this one is the last one, but this time I believe it is.
Bought myself an air purifier and a dehumidifier from your friends at Amazon.
They are both running now, changing the air in here. I have sage,
Sweetgrass and cedar which I am saving for the next time I feel ready
To take a step. 

North Adams

All the boys stood for the Anthem
on the home team's neglected field with more
cheerleaders than football players. I stood outside
the fence, the only evident visiting team fan,
waiting for my eldest son, taller than I,
to get his shot at a sack or a solid block.
It was mountainous and sunny and the day felt like
the early hours of a manic episode might -
everything suddenly a little brighter, more vivid,
giddy nearly to the point of dizzy.
I contained it, my face reddening in the brilliance,
taking in the silhouette of the mountain -
the one that inspired Melville to write
his whale.