The Orange Store

 

                      

On the side of a gravel road,

it sits,

newly painted,

bright orange

and tilting towards the ground,

an old country grocery store;

The front is covered

with settled, grey gravel dust;

I was five

when my sister

first walked me

down the gravel road

to Middlebrook grocery,

The Orange Store;

But I grew into an adult

And the road grew into a major route;

The Orange Store

sits with old gravel dust

and a new exhaust film

in between a trailer park

and a shopping mall

and across from a mini-mart;

Old orange paint chips,

no longer bright,

lay among the gravel

that is only in the parking lot;

And yet I still walk there

 

 

Fuezle

 

            “Fuezle!” I cried out, in the half-frantic, half-asleep way of someone just awoken.  I had been awoken by my husband.  He was trying to be quiet.  Trying to be quiet is a pretty sure way to wake someone up.  I don’t know why.

            “It’s alright; I took care of it,” my husband assured me.

            “What?” I asked.  I had been sneezing all day and I couldn’t take it anymore and finally took an antihistamine.  One little pink pill and I was knocked out for hours.  My husband came home from work and saw me sleeping off the medicine.  He tried to be quiet and, consequently, woke me up from a very deep sleep.  I didn’t actually know any of this at the time, as my head was still wrapped around the little pink pill, leading me to ask my question.

            “Hey, you’re not sneezing,” my husband remarked.  No, no I wasn’t.  Which meant that I had taken an antihistamine.  Which meant I had been sleeping.  Which meant my husband had woken me up when he got home.  Suddenly, it all made so much sense.  I shook some more of the sleep out of my head and looked at my husband.

            “Was I saying something?”

            Look, nobody every said I was bright, even in my best moments.  And this was not one of my best moments.

            “You asked about Fuezle.  I said I took care of it.”

            “Oh, that’s good!  Oh, I’m so excited!  Aren’t you excited, Kitty?” I asked the bundle of fur on my legs.  The cat apparently had not been awoken by my husband coming in and she apparently was not all that excited. 

 

            I waited days for Fuezle.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I was so excited.  I couldn’t focus on my work.  I could barely sleep or eat.  I just bounced around the house, making ready for Fuezle.  My husband was just as excited, but he’s much more mellow than I.  He went to work everyday.  I would kiss him good-bye and then flutter around the house, a butterfly on its little butterfly errands.  The day would pass slowly, until finally I would hear the front door open.

            “Fuezle?” I would scream to my husband from whatever part of the house I was in.

            “Not today, Dear,” he would say.

            I would be disappointed and mope all evening, while my husband would tell me I couldn’t let all my emotions get wrapped up in this one thing.

            “It’s not a thing! Fuezle!”

            “Yes, Fuezle,” he would say, calmly. 

            But his act wasn’t working on me.  He was trying to keep busy, trying to distract himself from the anticipation of Fuezle.  He would go to work early, work hard and late, then he would come home and putter from project to project, never finishing any of them.  He started to build a cat post with a little bed on the top for Kitty to use.  He started to organize the front closet.  He started to put in a new kitchen sink.  As for me, I spent my days waiting and cleaning up the messes of his half finished projects.  I spent my evenings pacing and pouting.  I spent my nights dreaming of Fuezle.

 

            Finally, a couple of weeks after my husband had woken me from a sound sleep, I heard the front door open.  Even before I could call out what was now my traditional greeting, my husband yelled, “FUEZLE!”

            I came running, the cat at my heels.  The two of us lined up in front of my husband, who was holding a rather large box.  I smiled so hard my teeth hurt.  The three of us went to the dining room table.  My husband went to get scissors, while the cat and I waited.  Kitty kept nuzzling the box, marking her territory.

            “My box.  My Fuezle.  Mine.”

            When my husband returned, he cut open the box and pulled out the packing peanuts.  There it was.  It seemed like we had waited forever and now, there it was.  Right in the box.  Fuezle.  The cat nuzzled some more while my husband and I exchanged gazes.  Then the three of us stared into the box.  And all was good.  Because of Fuezle.

Air Conditioning

 

 

It was summer in Chicago,

Ninety-five degrees and almost the same percent of humidity;

And then the air conditioning went out

 

And then the air conditioning went out;

I really can’t establish that fact enough;

The Air Conditioning Went Out!

So, all the windows were open and the ceiling fans turned on;

Ceiling fans give me a headache

because I can see them out of the corner of my eye,

twirling and twirling and twirling and making me motion sick;

I shed most of my clothes while he went to the utility room;

I was putting ice cubes into all the animals’ water bowls,

when he came back, wet up to his ankles;

“I think something is wrong with the air conditioner,”

I would have smiled at all of the silliness of the scene,

if it wasn’t for the fact that it was getting hotter by the second

 

Now, the cat didn’t mind because cats like to be hot;

Freaks!

But bunny rabbits do not like it,

which might explain why I have two bunnies and only one cat;

I understand bunnies better;

I found a shady spot in the cross breeze and I sat there,

wetting down the bunnies’ ears with cool water;

While he and the cat rushed about, calling repair men,

who always said, “tomorrow,”

my charges and I fell into a sweat soaked sleep right there on the hallway floor

 

A loud noise woke me up and I left my furry friends to go to the window;

A deep green sky;

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, Red sky in the morning…

Wait, that doesn’t apply here;

Green skies are for thunderstorms;

Lightning flashed and thunder clapped

and it was deliciously dark with cool, dare I say almost cold, winds;

I got my air conditioning

Scented

                                                                      

In the sticky, hot

mid-August air

of May,

On the backroads

that silently wind

over the green hills

and past

the sno-cone stands

on the way

from Washington, D.C.

to Baltimore,

A scent hangs

on the humidity;

It comes

from the pastures

on which nothing grazes,

up over the trees

that shade

the small roads

and their sharp curves,

and sticks to the cars

along with the yellow

dusting of pollen;

A mixture

of youth and home

of honeysuckle and green onions

Angry Bitch Poetry

It’s everything you fear modern poetry is;

Pissed off women using odd metaphors

to hurl insults at their ex-boyfriends;

It’s not so bad;

But every wanna-be-dyke in flannel

who got up in front of a barely filled coffee house

on open mike night and complained

about how he didn’t treat her good,

even though she gives great blow jobs,

ruined it for the rest of us

We lived together while I was in college;

He was not in college, had no such ambitions;

He was beautiful and he was strong

and I loved him;

My mistake;

We lived together for nine months

and then summer came;

And we decided, together,

that I should return to my mother’s house,

since she paid my bills

and I really did want to finish college;

I went;

My mother’s house was only a few miles from his,

our, house;

I went there often;

And we had sex,

and we went out,

and I cooked dinner,

and we talked about the future,

about marriage,

about children;

And we laughed

because that was always what we did best;

And then one Tuesday night,

he called me at my mother’s house

and he said (and I quote):

“I’m getting married Friday.

Wanna come to the wedding?”

You’d think there would be more to this story,

some suspicions I hadn’t voiced,

some hints of things to come that I could only see with 20/20 hindsight;

But there isn’t.

His ex-girlfriend came back one night and asked him to marry her;

And he said, “Yes.”

But now, only six years later,

he’s on his third marriage, to yet another controlling, manipulative woman;

He has eight step-children

(two of whom where born to his first wife while he was married to her)

and he’s only allowed to see half of them;

And he keeps telling everybody that he’s still in love with me-

A poem of poetic justice: how so very apt-

And I am here to admit to the small part of me

that takes incredible joy in the fact that he has ruined his life;

It’s what every girl really wants

See, now that wasn’t so bad;

No man-hating anthem full of strange images,

from a woman scorned

to be heard at some amateur poetry slam;

Just a tale with a pretty good ending,

even if I do say so myself;

It’s not everything you fear modern poetry to be

Life with William

There were six of them, which was two more than I’d been expecting.  The night before, when I had left my jeans on the floor, there had been four holes in them.  And now, in the morning light, there were six.  The four old holes were getting a little larger everyday.  But the two new holes were small.  Small and in the shape of a little bunny mouth.

            I looked over at William.  He was looking innocent.  He was not innocent.  He munched hay, as I talked to him.

            “That’s it.  No Star Trek for you today.”

            William is a weird little bunny.  Not because he likes to chew holes in things.  That is a very normal bunny activity.  William is weird because he likes to watch Star Trek.  And he knows his Star Trek.  The Original Series.  The Next Generation.  Deep Space Nine (his personal favorite).  Voyager.  He does not, however, consider Enterprise to be a valid Star Trek series , but who among us does?  He understands that all of these things are Star Trek.  When I turn on Star Trek, he comes running into the other room and stares intently at the television.  During the commercials, he cleans his toes and ears or snuffles around.  But he understands that’s not Star Trek.  He doesn’t watch any other television shows.  Not even other science fiction.  Just Star Trek.  Weird little bunny.  So every day, at 4:00, I turn on the SciFi channel and we watch Star Trek together.  But not today.  Today, William is being punished.

            I put on my jeans, the ones with the holes in them and a tee shirt, which also had little bunny holes in it.  I padded, barefoot, into the kitchen.  William followed closely behind me, anticipating breakfast.

            Walking through the door of my kitchen, I found myself in the Oval Office.  There was a nice looking gentleman behind the desk.  No president I knew.  But, hey, anyone sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office had to be the president, right? 

            “Good morning, Mr. President.  I’m just getting some coffee.” I said to the man behind the desk.

            “Security!” the man said into an intercom.

            I walked over to a coffee trolley and poured myself a cup.  Just as I was taking my first sip, several Marines with guns were standing around me.  I walked slowly backwards, showing my hands and the fact that they held nothing but coffee.  I kept backing up.  William was circling my feet, making it hard for me to not trip and fall down.  Tripping and falling down would definitely be a bad thing.  William and I continued our slow movement backwards.  The Marines continued to point guns at us.  And then we were back in the hallway of my apartment.

            “Well, I’ll have to get your breakfast from the grocery store, but you’re going to have to wait until I drink my coffee,” I said to William.

            I went to the front door and opened it.  I was looking for my newspaper.  Instead I found an alien vista of some sort.  William continued to snuffle around my feet.  He looked up at the vista but quickly lost interest when he figured out that if wasn’t Star Trek.  I closed the door.

William and I went into the living room.  Standing there, looking quite confused was a Roman solider.  I smiled and pointed to the porch door. 

            “You want to go out there,” I said, which was silly, because he couldn’t understand what I was saying. 

            He looked at me, looked at the door, looked at me.  I walked over to the door and opened it for him.  Through the door I could only see my own porch, but I had a suspicion that it really lead to some part of the Roman Empire.  I motioned to the soldier that he should go through the door.  He seemed to understand and went through.  William tried to follow him, but I put out my foot to stop my bunny from ending up as Caesar’s dinner.  I closed the door and went to sit on the couch.  I turned on the television and leaned back to drink my coffee.  William jumped up on my lap, causing me to spill my coffee.  I sighed.

            “You know you have to stop chewing holes in the space – time continuum,” I said to William, who was licking up the spilt coffee, “And my jeans.”

Two Nights Without Electricity

I.

A rare, perfect moment, the kind people constantly scour their childhoods for,

and that it happened in my adolescence makes it more amazing;

My sister and brother-in-law visiting from New York;

Mom grilled hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner;

We all laughed and talked while we ate until the sky darkened,

as it is wont to do in the summer evenings in Maryland;

And then the rain came in big, fat drops;

Plop, plop, plop;

Inside, we played board games and talked and laughed and stayed up much too late;

Outside, thunder came and went;

Finally, we all headed off to bed;

And after teeth were brushed and pajamas put on and blankets crawled under,

the lights went out and it was pitch in our suburban house,

without ambient house lights inside and street lights outside;

My mother, my sister and I did not just fall asleep in the perfect darkness;

We did not roll over and listen to the thunder;

My mother, my sister and I crawled out of bed and made our way downstairs;

We all got candles, but the only candles we could find were long, thin tapers;

And there were no candleholders to be found;

I don’t know who first looked to the watermelon that was sitting on the counter;

I don’t know who first picked up the knife;

But soon, there were three candles sitting in that forgotten desert;

And we laughed so hard,

so hard we had tears running down our faces,

so hard I thought my bladder would burst,

so hard we did not hear the footsteps coming down the stairs;

My brother-in-law asked what was going on;

We pointed to the watermelon and started laughing even harder,

my mother and my sister holding on to the counter and each other

in order to keep themselves standing,

and me, doubled over and doing that Gotta Pee Dance;

And he just looked at us, as if we were insane

II.

I was sifting through insomnia when the electricity withdrew;

My husband slept soundly next to me;

No storm brought this,

No reason I could fathom,

Except Com Ed sucks;

The motion sensitive light outside no longer lit up at the movement

of squirrels and stray cats;

The white noise of the air filter was gone,

letting in the noises of the city

and the house;

Every creak and groan of the old brownstone

made me jump;

And shadows in the light from the pollution filled sky,

which reflects the neon from blocks away

made me wary;

Was somebody breaking in?

Or is it just one of the pets wandering around,

as they must do every night?

The I-Could-Fall-Asleep-At-Any-Moment thoughts leave

and I am wide awake,

listening to my husband’s even, slightly whistling, snores

and the moans the indicate the cat is stretching, the rabbit is playing,

or the killers are coming to get me;

I don’t want to leave my bed,

though it might provide reassurance,

because it also might confirm my worst fears;

And my mother told me to never ask questions

which I don’t really want to know the answers to;

Light and noise flicker;

Husband stirs and rolls over and sleeps again;

Darkness settles in again;

I sit up,

waiting for whatever intruder I’ve imagined to appear,

and stay that way for the next five hours

998 Bunny Rabbits

            When I came in the front door of my apartment, my husband was waiting for me.  I was soaking wet and being followed by 998 soaking wet bunny rabbits. 

            “Where have you been?  I’ve been worried,” my husband said. 

            “The “L” reconfigured itself while I was on it,” I replied.

            My husband started walking towards the back of the house and I followed him.  The bunny rabbits stayed in the living room, hopping and bouncing on the furniture, as bunny rabbits are wont to do.

            “So where did you end up getting off?” my husband asked.

            “I got off at the Sheridan stop, but it was really the Belmont stop.  And it was only a two stop difference, so I counted myself lucky and walked the rest of the way,” I answered loudly, so my husband could hear me.  His head was in the linen closet.

            “I don’t know why you ride the “L”.  You know it is likely to reconfigure itself, especially when it’s raining,” my husband said, as he handed me 499 towels.

            “I had to.  I ran out of money.”

            We walked back to the living room.  We each picked up a bunny rabbit.  We started to dry them off.  The other bunny rabbits saw this and immediately formed two lines.  498 bunny rabbits in each line.

            “Perhaps you should start at the beginning,” he said, diligently rubbing down his second bunny rabbit.

            “Okay, so I was getting ready for work…”

            And then I heard the horrible flash back music.

            I have this volunteer job.  Because I don’t have a real job and I don’t have kids.  And I don’t ever want either.  But what would people think if I just stayed home and watched Star Trek all day, everyday.  So I have this volunteer job.  Not because I want to help anyone.  Mostly I hate the human race.  But that’s neither here nor there.  I read to deaf people.  I don’t know if I’m helping them because I don’t understand sign language.  And I have to admit, some of them look annoyed when I show up and follow them around, reading the newspaper. 

            Anyway… I was getting ready for work when the doorbell rang.  I answered it with my usual trepidation, because who knows what is going to be on the other side.  On the other hand, if you don’t answer it, they’ll keep ringing. 

            When I answered the door, there were 998 bunny rabbits standing there.  One of the bunny rabbits stepped forward and tried to hand me a piece of paper.

            “We’re here,” the bunny rabbit said.

            “What?” I asked.

            “We’re here.”

            He was shaking the paper at me.  I took it and looked at it.  It was one of those moments when you know every word on the paper, but somehow, strung together like that, they make absolutely no sense.

            “What?” I asked again.

            “You ordered 998 bunny rabbits.  And we’re here,” he said, talking very slowly, for I was obviously an idiot.

            “I didn’t order 998 bunny rabbits.”

            “Your name is on the invoice.”

            I looked at the invoice.  Damned if my name wasn’t there.  Well, what can you do?  So I explained that I was just on my way to work and that they should come with me and we would get them settled in afterwards.  So out to the corner we went.  I hailed a cab and we all got in. 

            “Beautiful day,” the cab driver said, after I told him where we were going.  It was, in fact, not a beautiful day.  It was a cold Chicago day, with wind whipping off the lake, and thunderheads forming.

            “Hhhmmm…” I grunted.  I started petting the bunny rabbit that was on the top of the pile on my lap with great interest.  Mostly I get cab drivers who want to talk.  Which I wouldn’t mind so much if they could think of anything to talk about besides the weather.  It turned out that the lead bunny rabbit, the one who’d handed me the invoice, wanted to talk, so I was off the hook.  He asked all sorts of questions about Chicago landmarks and, oddly enough, Swedish cuisine.  He and the cab driver talked the whole way.

            “That will be $516,” the cab driver said.

            “Are you sure?” I asked.

            “$17.00 for the trip and fifty cents for each additional passenger.”

            “Oh, right.  Forgot about that,” I said.  Then I handed him $650 and told him to keep the change.  I always overtip.  We went to my job and followed deaf people around, reading to them.  Some stopped to pet the bunny rabbits.  One guy even had a long chat with the lead bunny rabbit.  Paws and hands flying through the air.

            “What was that about?” I asked, after the guy had left.

            “Oh, he was just saying that you annoy him,” the bunny rabbit answered. 

            “Yeah, I figured.”

            Then it was time to go home.  And I didn’t have enough money to take a cab, so we went on the “L”, because the rule there is that if you can walk underneath the turnstile, without ducking, you can ride for free.  So I only had to pay for me and the two biggest bunny rabbits.  But it was raining.  And I should have known.  Every time it rains, the “L” reconfigures itself.  Once I was going to the Sheridan station, the one by my house, at 4000 North and I ended up at 5300 South.  It was very inconvenient.  This time I only ended up two stops away.  So I just walked.  998 wet bunny rabbits in tow.

            And then the flashback was over.  And nobody had died this time.  Very lucky day for me.  Probably because of all those bunny rabbit feet.  The real lucky ones are still on the bunny rabbit.  If it wasn’t lucky for the bunny rabbit, why would it be lucky for anyone else?  I was almost at the end of my line of wet bunny rabbits.  I looked around the living room to find the lead bunny rabbit.  He was checking out the DVD collection. 

            “We’re going to be a bit crowded until we can find a bigger house to live in, so you and the rest of the bunny rabbits will have to double up on quarters,” I said.

            “That’s fine,” said the lead bunny rabbit, waving a paw in my direction, never taking his eyes off the DVDs.  “Hey, can we watch Independence Day?!?!?!?!?”