OOLONG STEAMS IN a small Chinese cup. Cool, moist breeze out. Rain threatens and the sky's pink, luminous with the city's deflected light. Sycamore limbs tremble in silhouette. K comes to me smelling of shit. "Papa, change my diaper," he says. Okay, sure—and an enormous cockroach greets me in the bathroom when I go to rinse the turd. Whack it with The Nation, leaving streaks on a green wall. Follow the crippled bug on green tile for the death blow and sweep it into the toilet. There are stains on the bowl. The grout's brown. Smells like a truck stop. How'd I let it get this way? The cat scratches to be let in. A siren blasts down MLK. Spiderwort blossoms purple above dense green growth in the unkempt yard. This soggy spring saturates everything—the air we breathe, my skin, the cats' flea-ridden fur, chalked-on sidewalks, mud and pebbles tracked in on my boots, a tiny yellow blossom on the winter jasmine, thick car dirt, my itching shoulder blade and my elbow cracked yesterday on a door frame. "Regular Kiss," K says, after I playfully blow a raspberry full on his lips. His hands are on my neck, insistent. He's intent to absorb our ritual embraces.
Posted by Dale at May 21, 2004 07:13 AM