This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of cc&d magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
“re-released” through amazon sale
as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book! Email us for re-release to order.
When I lived on the fourth floor
of the Cavendish
on the border of Shadyside
and Homewood the family
across the street
was the soap opera. Our doorman
hated them. A flag with the
eagle emblem hung
above our entrance. He made sure
to unhinge it, take it down, and vacuum it
daily.
Dollhouse,
Paper Mache Las Vegas,
Salvation Army puppet show.
The window stamped like
a cookie cutter
a 27 inch screen.
Brawls, public intox, laughing, screaming,
shrieking, toking, sobbing, paddy wagons, flashing sirens
like landed UFO’s. Day and night. Especially night. The cops chuckled
and patted them on the back as you would
a younger sibling who
intermittently annoyed. The brothers left
the house and slipped into the alley
every time they had to
go to the bathroom. So how did
the sisters and mom handle theirs?
Across from them our trash bins.
I don’t know how the family
put up with the smell. Rats ate
there nightly. House cats ate the rats.
If I pressed my face to the glass
I saw our fire escape peripherally
to the left.
A woman shouted and swung
a steak knife at a slowly
retreating man. He
made faces at her. Little kids poised on bikes, a rainbow kiddie sneaker
on the cement, the other on a peddle,
watched with half moon smiles.
Moons. Smiles. The woman turned to
yell at them and the man lunged
at her and ripped the knife
away. A little girl said, “Now you watch
what you do, Daryl. She’s a
woman.” She kept shouting
at him. I pushed my nose into
the window and saw
the largest bird in the world. A vulture,
but fucking huge (In the city?). Its claws wrung
the black metal handrail. A smear of thick gray feathers
like drunk water colors
hugged up to the sinewy head. I had never seen
a bird
that gigantic
before.
Not even on
a nature show. Its beak screamed
bloody canine yellow.
