Tag: melancholy

Our neighbor with the same name as mine

~ Pleasant Street ~ 10 Comments

I watched her fade from sparkling stars in her eyes to wilted roses in her cheeks.
Always ready with a hello and a word of friendship, the neighborhood benefited from the two handfuls of folks who kept the town feeling small. Not small in a bad way, but small in the way that people know you when you go out. Some know how you like your coffee, others will knock for sugar when they are hard up and can’t get to the store because the car is busted again.

Her dark hair, graying at the temples, turned white with disappointment that I didn’t know her well enough to ask about, but I recognized it as something I was on the fringes of.
Then she cut her hair, not in some cute bob with a lift on the ends, but chopped harshly like something she would not miss, just below her ears.

One day she appeared with a limp, the daily bike ride to work gone, she walked the blocks, one foot slightly dragging.
I asked her what had happened, and she said a chill had come in through the window one night while she slept, and her hip was never the same.

She occasionally smiled if I smiled first, her face care-worn and listless, her eyes never quite meeting mine.
Then one day– I realized she was gone.

Between seasons
the bluejays are all but gone
the air is so quiet

Here, kitty, kitty

~ Pleasant Street ~ 3 Comments

Sitting in this bar
fifty miles from home
(that does not feel like home)
a blue Persian cat making love to my legs

the beer, head-splitting cold, and
I drink deep
then reach down to scratch his head
against my knee

I came here to forget
to disappear into a dim crowd
his amorous
attention to my shins
making my eyes misty

a lick of pretzel salt
from my finger with a rough tongue
throat vibrating
against my palm
when he purrs

Squatter

~ Pleasant Street ~ 9 Comments

Blues is a drifter
hanging about
telling stories, and
drinking my stuff
and every few days I consider
giving him the boot

It is morning again
somehow less pained
with a kind voice
taking the wind from his sails
and showing him the door
before breakfast

He sits on my stoop
smoking a stogie
singing about something something
from thirty years ago
stealing crusts of bread
from my bird feeder