Apartment Tree
October 11th, 2009
The middle pair of windows on the third floor let in the light and summer air. These apartments are two windows wide and twenty feet long. Her kitchen is a microwave and toaster oven, the bathroom includes the only sink and garbage disposal. She makes her living tutoring rich city kids for college entrance exams. They come up the stairs for an hour and a half after school three times a week times twelve weeks, six grand. Her record is pretty good, particularly on math scores.
Once she had a husband and together they made a baby. It was to be a home birth; the midwife came, late at night, when the contractions were still irregular. “The baby won’t come tonight, I’ll be here in the morning.” The baby did arrive that night, dead, strangled by the navel wrapped around its neck.
She left the guy when he got too into downers. She spends her mornings at the window analyzing with her computer the complex interplay between melody and cadence in the ornate Melismatic Gregorian chants. She is determined to find there the answer to life’s persistent questions
The smell of bats.
the flavor of sandstone
grit on the tongue
women
birthing
at the foot of ladders in the dark. Gary Snyder
George's selection of 66 Phlogs is available in print from People's Press.
